BR  530  .R44  1917   c.l 


The  religious  history  of  Nev 
England  I  "^ 


/ 

THE  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF 
NEW  ENGLAND 

KING'S  CHAPEL  LECTURES 


John  Winthrop  Platner  George  Hodges 

William  W.  Fenn  William  E.  Huntington 

George  E.  Horr  John  Coleman  Adams 

RuFus  M.  Jones  William  L.  Worcester 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

Oxford  University  Press 

1917 


COPYMGHT,  1917 
HAKVASD  tJNIVEESITY  PRESS 


PREFACE 

THE  chapters  of  this  book  were  prepared  and  delivered 
as  lectures  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lowell  Institute 
in  King's  Chapel,  Boston,  in  the  winters  of  1914-15  and 
191 5-16.  The  Committee  in  charge  of  the  lectures  consisted 
of  representatives  of  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  and  the 
affiUated  schools,  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  and  the 
Episcopal  Theological  School,  Cambridge. 

One  deficiency  the  Committee  sincerely  regret.  It  ap- 
peared impossible  to  secure  either  for  the  lectures  or  for 
the  book  an  historical  narrative  from  a  member  of  the 
Roman  Cathohc  communion.  The  Committee  feel  that  the 
book  ought  not  to  be  issued  without  at  least  some  word 
recognizing  the  contribution  which  that  Church  has  made  to 
the  Religious  History  of  New  England. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS i 

John  Winthrop  Platner 

Brown  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  Andover  Theological  Seminary 

1.  The  Beginnings  of  Congregationalism 3 

2.  The  Period  of  Church  Dominance 22 

3.  Religion  and  Theology  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  .  38 

4.  Modern  Congregationalism     56 

II.  THE  REVOLT  AGAINST  THE  STANDING  ORDER     .       75 

William  W.  Fenn 

Dean  and  Bussey  Professor  of  Theology,  Harvard  Divinity  School 

1.  Popular  Movements 77 

2.  The  Unitarians 97 

III.  THE  BAPTISTS     135 

George  E.  Horr 

President  and  Professor  of  Church  History,  Newton  Theological  Institution 

IV.  THE  QUAKERS     177 

RuFus  M.  Jones 

Professor  in  Haverford  College 

V.  THE  EPISCOPALIANS 203 

George  Hodges 

Stone  Professor  of  Homiletics  and  Pastoral  Theology,  and  Dean, 
Episcopal  Theological  School,  Cambridge 

1.  Before  the  American  Revolution 205 

2.  After  the  American  Revolution 227 

VI.  THE  METHODISTS     249 

.   William  Edwards  Huntington 

Sometime  President  of  Boston  University 

1.  Personal  and  Institutional  Forces     251 

2.  Practical  Bearings  of  New  England  Methodism  .   .     273 

VII.  THE  UNIVERSALISTS 295 

John  Coleman  Adams 
Pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Redeemer,  Hartford,  Connecticut 

VIII.   THE  SWEDENBORGIANS 323 

William  L.  Worcester 

President  and  Professor  of  Scripture  Interpretation,  Homiletics,  and  Pastoral 
Duty,  New-Church  Theological  School,  Cambridge 


1 

THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS 

JOHN  WINTHROP  PLATNER 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS 

I.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  CONGREGATIONALISM 

THE  ecclesiastical  forms  under  which  the  religious  his- 
tory of  New  England  was  begun,  and  through  which 
that  history  long  continued  to  unfold  itself,  were  for  the  most 
part  Congregational.  Throughout  the  colonial  period,  and 
weU  down  into  the  nineteenth  century,  Congregationalism 
was  the  dominant  church  polity,  and  the  churches  of  that 
order  remain  even  today  the  most  important  Protestant 
bodies  in  New  England.  In  view  of  the  large  influence  which 
New  England  has  exercised  upon  the  religious,  social,  and 
educational  Ufe  of  the  country  at  large,  it  must  be  evident 
that,  altogether  apart  from  the  intrinsic  interest  of  the  sub- 
ject, a  review  of  Congregationalism  is  likely  to  throw  light 
upon  many  sides  of  our  national  history,  and  to  reveal  the 
working  of  some  of  the  most  significant  forces  which  have 
ever  operated  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 

For  Congregationalism  is  the  expression  of  a  certain  type 
of  life  and  character,  —  self-dependent.  God-fearing,  indus- 
trious, capable,  and  highly  conscientious,  —  the  qualities  on 
which  alone  enduring  social  and  political  institutions  can  be 
reared.  Bishop  Creighton's  judgment,  the  judgment  of  a 
trained  historian  but  not  an  ecclesiastical  sympathizer,  was 
hardly  an  exaggeration  of  the  facts,  when  he  said  that 
Congregationalism  "  stamped  upon  the  early  colonies  of 
America  the  severe  morality  and  patient  industry  which 
have  trained  a  nation."  And  the  late  Lord  Acton,  also  a 
trained  historian,  but  even  less  than  Creighton  an  ecclesias- 
tical sympathizer,  paid  his  ungrudging  tribute  to  the  Puritans 


4  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  general,  and  Independents  in  particular,  when  he  said, 
"  The  idea  that  religious  liberty  is  the  generating  principle 
of  civil,  and  that  civil  liberty  is  the  necessary  condition  of 
religious,  was  a  discovery  reserved  for  the  seventeenth 
century.  .  .  .  That  great  poUtical  idea  .  .  .  has  been  the 
soul  of  what  is  great  and  good  in  the  progress  of  the  last  two 
hundred  years.  " 

It  is  this  chapter  of  New  England  history  that  we  are  to 
review  together,  so  far  as  the  narrow  limits  of  our  time 
permit. 

Travelling  northward  one  hundred  and  forty-six  miles 
from  London,  on  the  old  post-road  leading  to  York  and 
Edinburgh,  one  comes  to  the  quiet  hamlet  of  Scrooby,^ 
inhabited  by  scarce  two  hundred  persons,  but  boasting,  as 
its  most  interesting  possession,  an  ancient  manor  house,  once 
belonging  to  the  archbishop  of  York,  but  now  a  shrine  of 
CongregationaHsm  and  the  goal  of  pious  p  Igrimages  from 
New  England.  Here  at  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury dwelt  William  Brewster,  master  of  the  post,  and  here, 
careful  to  avoid  publicity,  assembled  rrom  time  to  time  a 
little  group  of  earnest  men  and  women,  belonging  to  the 
advanced  party  of  English  puritans,  —  men  and  women  who 
were  not  content  to  remain  w'thin  the  established  church, 
however  its  forms  and  ceremonies  might  be  modified,  but 
felt  constrained,  in  loyalty  to  the  Word  of  God,  to  withdraw 
from  all  ecclesiastico-political  entanglements  and,  as  Brad- 
ford puts  it,  to  "  join  themselves  (by  a  covenant  of  the  Lord) 
into  a  church  estate,  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Gospel."  From 
this  little  society  of  "  the  Lord's  free  people  "  proceeded 
the  impulse  which,  a  few  years  later,  resulted  in  the  first 
permanent  settlement  of  New  England. 

^  Scrooby  is  in  Nottinghamshire,  near  the  borders  of  Lincolnshire  and  York- 
shire.   The  nearest  railway  station  is  Bawtry. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  5 

The  movement  for  which  these  men  of  Scrooby  stood  was 
the  outcome  of  many  influences,  not  all  ecclesiastical,  yet  for 
the  most  part  religious.  It  represented  one  branch,  —  and 
for  many  years  only  a  minor  branch,  —  of  the  great  Puritan 
party,  which  also  included  conforming  Puritans,  Presby- 
terians, Anabaptists,  and  perhaps  non-separatist  Independ- 
ents. ^  What  differentiated  the  men  of  Scrooby  from  their 
fellow  puritans  was  their  thorough-going  ecclesiastical 
democracy,  which  might  perhaps  be  called  their  thorough- 
going protestantism,  only  protestantism  had  not  yet  become 
fully  conscious  of  its  logical  goal.  The  beginnings  of  the 
movement  are  traceable  much  earlier  than  the  days  of 
William  Brewster.  The  first  church  organization  of  the 
independent  type  is  by  some  believed  to  have  been  the 
"  Privy  Church  "  of  Richard  Fitz,  in  London,  which  goes 
back  at  least  to  the  year  1571.  Others  would  regard  the  still 
earlier  Plumbers'  Hall  congregation,  which  met  in  1567,  as 
the  oldest.  But  so  far  as  direct  and  permanent  influence  is 
concerned,  the  original  centre  of  the  Congregational  move- 
ment seems  to  have  been  in  the  county  of  Norfolk,  and 
particularly  the  town  of  Norwich,  where  Robert  Browne 
began  his  work  about  the  year  1580,  and  where  local  condi- 
tions were  especially  favorable  to  the  development  of  popular 
self-governing  associations. 

Recent  investigation  has  shown  that  Norfolk  was  the  home 
of  many  gilds,  semi-religious  in  character,  whose  statutes 
might  easily  have  suggested  a  form  of  constitution  for 
churches  of  the  independent  order.  ^  Furthermore,  nearly 
twenty  years  before  Browne  organized  his  separatist  move- 
ment there,  at  least  one  of  the  regular  parish  churches  of 

^  Champlin  Burrage  finds  ground  for  believing  that  at  first  not  all  the  inde- 
pendent puritans  were  separatist  in  principle.  See  his  Early  English  Dissenters, 
I,  pp.  281,  310. 

*  See  an  article  by  J.  W.  Thompson,  in  the  American  Historical  Review,  April, 
1913,  p.  503. 


6  RELIGIOUS  raSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Norwich,  St.  Andrew's,  had  already  acquired  a  measure  of 
self-government  through  the  purchase  of  the  right  of  patron- 
age, whereby  it  gained  the  power  to  call  and  to  dismiss  its 
own  ministers.^  John  Robinson,  the  honored  Pilgrim  pastor, 
thought  meanly  of  this  arrangement,  which  he  held  to  be  a 
poor  substitute  for  the  liberty  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
passage  expressing  his  opinion  is  worth  quoting: 

St.  Andrew's  is  not  possessed  of  that  poor  liberty  it  useth  by  any 
immediate  spiritual  right  from  Christ,  as  the  body  from  the  head,  the 
wife  from  the  husband,  —  but  by  a  simoniacal  purchase  from  the 
patron,  as  the  most  profane  assemblies  in  the  kingdom  (in  which  not 
a  man  feareth  God)  might  purchase  it, —  and  so  that  spiritual  liberty, 
which  Christ  hath  bought  with  his  blood  and  wherein  all  Christians 
ought  to  stand  fast,  they  buy  with  a  piece  of  money,  committing 
herein  simony  as  great  as  Simon  did. 

Yet  the  bare  existence  before  their  eyes  of  a  church  actually 
possessed  of  a  measure  of  local  control,  must  have  encouraged 
the  separatists  to  renewed  exertions  for  their  more  worthy 
cause.  At  any  rate  it  was  not  long  after  Robert  Browne 
removed  from  Norwich  to  Holland,  that  he  pubUshed  his 
famous  Treatise  of  Reformation  without  Tarrying  for  Any, 
in  which  are  clearly  set  forth  the  principles  of  separatism 
and  independency.^  It  remains  to  this  day  one  of  the  most 
valuable  summaries  of  Congregationalism  ever  written. 

Two  other  champions  of  early  English  Congregationalism, 
Henry  Barrowe  and  John  Greenwood,  deserve  special  men- 
tion, for  they  were  martyrs  to  the  cause  they  had  so  ably 
served.  The  one  was  trained  as  a  barrister,  the  other  as  a 
clergyman,  but  both  became  leaders  of  a  non-conforming 
congregation,  known  in  the  history  of  independency  as  the 

^  Burrage:  New  Facts  concerning  John  Robinson,  p.  21.  Channing  calls  atten- 
tion to  a  similar  condition  of  things  prevailing  in  a  church  in  the  town  of  Boston, 
in  Lincolnshire.    See  his  History  of  the  United  States,  I,  p.  288. 

'  Old  South  Leaflets,  No.  100.  Issued  from  the  Old  South  Meeting-house, 
Boston. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  7 

London-Amsterdam  church.  Daniel  Neal,  in  his  History  of 
the  Puritans,  has  preserved  a  highly  interesting  account  of 
the  formation  of  this  church,  and  of  its  simple  rites  and 
ceremonies,  including  the  church  covenant,  the  mode  of  elec- 
tion of  ofl&cers  by  the  people,  their  induction  into  office,  and 
the  manner  of  administering  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.^ 
The  views  of  Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  showing  some  diver- 
gence from  strict  Brownism,  and  lodging  more  power  in  the 
eldership,  are  conveniently  summarized  in  the  "  Confession 
of  the  London- Amsterdam  Church,"  written  in  1596.^ 

The  distinctive  features  of  the  churches  which  these  men 
undertook  to  establish  are  found  not  in  creed  but  in  poHty. 
The  creed  of  early  Congregationahsts  was  Calvinistic,  as  was 
that  of  all  their  fellow  puritans.  "  It  is  well  known,"  writes 
Increase  Mather  in  1680,  "  that  as  to  matters  of  doctrine 
we  agree  with  other  reformed  churches;  nor  was  it  that, 
but  what  concerns  worship  and  discipUne,  that  caused  our 
fathers  to  come  into  this  wilderness."  The  marks  whereby 
Congregational  churches  desired  to  be  known  were  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  local  congregation,  its  constitution  under 
a  covenant,  the  absence  of  an  episcopate,  the  conception 
of  the  ministry  as  exercising  delegated  powers  of  a  purely 
spiritual  nature,  reliance  upon  the  sole  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  the  separation  of  church  and  state.  Not  all  these 
principles  however  were  the  exclusive  possession  of  Congre- 
gationahsts; other  protestants,  with  equal  justice,  could 
lay  claim  to  some  of  them.  And  not  all  of  them  were  con- 
sistently applied.  Nevertheless,  they  represent  the  plat- 
form on  which  our  New  England  forefathers  stood,  and  the 
manner  of  church  they  aimed  to  rear,  —  a  church  in  which 
was  the  potency  of  a  richer  life  and  a  larger  hberty  than  they 
themselves  at  first  enjoyed. 

*  History  of  the  Puritans,  I,  pp.  543  ff.    (2d  ed.    London,  1732.) 

2  Text  in  W.  Walker's  Creeds  and  Platforms  of  Congregationalism,  pp.  41-74. 


8  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Two  features  of  this  simple  church  organization  deserve 
especial  attention,  viz.,  the  covenant  and  the  ministry.  The 
former  was  the  organic  or  fundamental  law,  by  which  alone 
a  church  could  exist.  In  principle  it  is  closely  parallel  to 
the  famous  Mayflower  Compact,  whereby  the  Pilgrim  com- 
pany created  their  "  civil  body  politic,"  and  began  their 
existence  as  a  state.  Governor  Bradford's  description  of  the 
church,  formed  to  be  sure  before  their  departure  from  the 
old  world,  sounds  Hke  this  civil  compact  transferred  to  the  do- 
main of  religion.  They  "  joined  themselves  (by  a  covenant 
of  the  Lord)  into  a  church  estate,  in  the  fellowship  of  the 
Gospel,  to  walk  in  all  his  ways,  made  known,  or  to  be  made 
known  unto  them,  according  to  their  best  endeavors,  what- 
soever it  should  cost  them,  the  Lord  assisting  them."  ^  By 
such  mutual  agreements  did  the  subscribers  bind  themselves 
to  an  orderly  community  life,  in  the  one  case  as  a  body  politic, 
in  the  other  as  a  body  ecclesiastic.  And  thus  the  foundations 
of  American  democracy,  in  civil  and  religious  life,  were  laid 
together. 

Ecclesiastically  the  subscribers  to  the  covenant  gained 
thereby  all  the  rights  and  powers  which  the  Lord  had  be- 
stowed upon  his  church  in  the  Gospel.  They  believed  that 
those  rights  and  powers,  in  fact  all  the  workings  of  the 
Christian  brotherhood,  were  precisely  defined  and  described 
in  the  New  Testament,  more  particularly  in  the  letters  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  and  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  and  to  these 
writings  appeal  was  constantly  taken  for  direction  and  ad- 
vice. There  was  no  court  of  appeal  beyond  them.  The  free 
churches,  based  upon  covenants,  were  held  to  be  New  Testa- 
ment churches,  valid  and  sufficient  against  all  the  hierarch- 
ical and  ecclesiastical  usurpations  of  history. 

*  Bradford  adds,  with  touching  simplicity,  "  And  that  it  cost  them  something, 
this  ensuing  history  will  declare."  History  of  Plymouth  Plantation,  p.  31  (ed. 
W.  T.  Davis). 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  9 

With  regard  to  the  second  feature  of  their  poHty,  the 
ministry,  the  founders  of  CongregationaHsm  rejected  the 
traditional  view  of  clerical  orders,  and  maintained  the  simple 
theory  that  the  ministry  is  not  an  order  at  all,  but  merely 
an  office.  The  "  minister  "  of  a  church  was  the  man  chosen 
and  set  apart,  from  among  their  own  number,  to  be  the 
pastor  and  teacher  of  the  rest.  He  was  their  "  bishop,"  if 
they  pleased  to  call  him  so,  —  which  they  usually  did  not, 
bishops  being  unpopular  persons  among  the  English  separa- 
tists. He  had  no  ecclesiastical  superior,  and  according  to 
the  early  New  England  practice,  he  lost  his  ministerial 
standing  when  he  ceased,  for  any  reason,  to  hold  a  pastoral 
charge.  According  to  this  theory,  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  minister,  apart  from  the  church  he  served.^  This  simpli- 
fied conception  of  the  ministry,  pushed  through  so  coura- 
geously by  its  advocates,  was  based  in  the  last  analysis 
upon  the  ancient  and  highly  respectable  theory  of  Jerome, 
that  in  the  New  Testament  the  terms  bishop  and  presbyter 
are  used  interchangeably  for  the  same  officer  in  the  churches. 
(Jerome,  Epistles  69  and  146.)  It  is  the  theory  accepted 
and  maintained  by  many  Protestant  churches,  and  it  has 
found  distinguished  advocates,  like  the  late  Bishop  Light- 
foot,  even  within  the  Episcopal  communion.  But  of  course 
the  Congregationalists  went  a  step  beyond  their  brethren 
in  other  denominations,  in  rejecting  the  entire  conception  of 
clerical  orders. 

The  congregations  or  brotherhoods  with  which  we  are 
immediately  concerned,  boldly  declared  their  independence, 
under  God,  from  the  established  religion  of  the  English 
realm,  and  their  self-sufficiency  as  churches,  wherever  they 
might  find  themselves;    and  thus  they  re-affirmed  the  in- 

^  This  extreme  view,  represented  by  the  Cambridge  Platform,  was  never  ac- 
cepted by  the  entire  body  of  Congregationalists,  and  has  long  since  ceased  to  be 
advocated. 


lO  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

alienable  right  of  the  individual  in  all  matters  of  religion, 
which  had  been  one  of  the  most  momentous  implications  of 
the  protestant  movement.  Taking  the  apostolic  churches 
as  their  standard,  —  from  which  they  believed  that  the  or- 
ganized Christian  world  had  grievously  fallen  away,  —  they 
pronounced  severe  judgment  upon  others,  and  laid  them- 
selves open  to  many  a  charge  of  uncharitableness,  which 
their  opponents  were  quick  to  bring  against  them.^  Yet 
uncharitableness  is  very  apt  to  characterize  earnest  men 
who,  in  the  face  of  apparently  overwhelming  opposition,  are 
engaged  whole-heartedly  in  the  most  serious  affairs  of  life. 

The  first  little  company  of  separatists  came  to  New 
England  in  1620.  It  was  a  church  migration,  and  may  be 
described  geographically  as  the  Gainsborough-Scrooby- 
Leyden-Plymouth  church.  They  left  their  own  mother 
country  as  fugitives;  they  left  in  turn  the  place  of  their 
temporary  sojourn  in  Holland;  and  on  they  came  to  the 
American  wilderness,  —  half  of  their  number  to  die  within 
the  first  six  months,  and  the  other  half  to  lay  foundations 
upon  which  we  are  still  building. 

In  comparison  with  the  settlers  of  the  Plymouth  planta- 
tion, those  who  came  ten  years  later  to  Massachusetts  Bay 
were  a  multitude  in  number.  And  their  views  of  the  nature 
of  the  church  were  at  first  not  exactly  the  same.  No  better 
description  of  the  spirit  and  temper  which  animated  the 
leaders  of  the  great  migration  can  be  found  than  the  well- 
known  words  of  Francis  Higginson  to  his  fellow  passengers, 
when,  in  the  year  1629,  their  ship  was  off  Land's  End  and 
headed  westward:    "  We  do  not  go  to  New  England  as 

^  "  Their  chief  crime  was  their  uncharitableness,  in  unchurching  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  and  breaking  off  all  manner  of  communion  in  hearing  the  Word,  in 
public  prayer,  and  in  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  not  only  with  the  church 
of  England,  but  with  all  foreign  Reformed  churches,  which  though  less  pure  ought 
certainly  to  be  owned  as  churches  of  Christ."  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans,  I, 
P-  379- 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  II 

separatists  from  the  church  of  England,  though  we  cannot 
but  separate  from  the  corruptions  in  it,  but  we  go  to  practice 
the  positive  part  of  church  reformation,  and  propagate  the 
Gospel  in  America."  Similarly,  two  generations  later,  the 
Rev.  John  Higginson,  son  of  Francis,  writing  in  his  old  age 
an  "  attestation  "  for  Cotton  Mather's  Magnolia,  said  of 
these  voluntary  exiles,  that  they  "came  into  a  wilderness  for 
that  very  end,  that  hence  they  might  be  free  from  human 
additions  and  inventions  in  the  worship  of  God,  and  practice 
the  positive  part  of  divine  institutions,  according  to  the 
Word  of  God." 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  precise  shades  of  eccle- 
siastical opinion  held  at  first  in  Salem,  Boston,  and  Charles- 
town,  the  churches  there  estabhshed,  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Bay  Colony,  were  Congregational  churches,  and  they 
all  promptly  adopted  the  fundamental  principles  for  which 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  at  Pl}Tnouth  stood. 

One  of  the  best  examples  of  the  early  New  England  Way 
is  found  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Salem  colonists  in  setting 
up  their  church.  First  they  formulated  this  simple  covenant : 
"  We  covenant  with  the  Lord  and  one  with  another,  and  do 
bind  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  walk  together  in 
all  his  ways,  according  as  he  is  pleased  to  reveal  himself  unto 
us  in  his  blessed  word  of  truth."  Next  they  elected  Samuel 
Skelton  as  their  "  pastor,"  and  Francis  Higginson  as  their 
"  teacher."  Then,  to  quote  from  the  invaluable  contem- 
porary letter  preserved  for  us  in  Bradford's  History: 

Mr.  Higginson,  with  three  or  four  of  the  gravest  members  of  the 
church,  laid  their  hands  on  Mr.  Skelton,  using  prayer  therewith.  This 
being  done,  there  was  imposition  of  hands  on  Mr.  Higginson  also. 

The  full  significance  of  this  simple  narrative  can  be  grasped 
only  when  one  remembers  that  both  these  men  were  aheady 
ordained  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England. 


12  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  mode  of  procedure  at  the  formation  of  the  Charles- 
town-Boston  church,  the  following  year,  was  essentially  the 
same,  Governor  Winthrop  and  the  Rev.  John  Wilson  being  two 
of  the  four  charter  members.  Other  churches  were  organized 
throughout  the  colony,  as  the  tide  of  immigration  strength- 
ened and  the  number  of  settlements  increased.^  In  Win- 
throp's  Journal  the  entries  run  like  this:  "  A  church  was 
gathered  at  Dedham,"  or  "  A  church  was  gathered  at  the 
Mount  "  (Mount  WoUaston).  The  methods  pursued  in  all 
prove  the  widespread  acceptance  of  the  principle  laid  down 
by  Thomas  Hooker,  in  his  Survey  of  tJte  Summe  of  Church 
Discipline,  "  The  church,  as  totum  essentiale,  is  and  may  be 
before  officers."  This  puts  CongregationaUsm  in  a  nutshell; 
it  is  the  essence  of  the  whole  matter. 

A  few  of  the  churches  of  New  England  were  organized 
before  reaching  America,  such  as  the  church  at  Plymouth 
and  the  first  church  in  Dorchester.  A  few,  like  the  church  in 
Newtowne,  removed  bodily  from  their  original  place  of 
settlement  to  another,  —  in  this  case,  Hartford.  With  the 
growth  of  the  larger  settlements  the  first  parish  was  some- 
times set  off  into  two,  or  even  more,  and  town  divisions 
usually  followed  the  same  lines.  The  relation  between  church 
and  community  was  much  closer  in  colonial  New  England 
than  is  sometimes  supposed. 

The  connection  between  church  and  state  was  also  close, 
in  spite  of  their  theoretical  separation,  —  so  close  in  fact  that 
the  government  of  Massachusetts  Bay  has  often  been  de- 
scribed as  a  theocracy.  The  people  of  New  England  were 
steeped  in  the  conviction  that  they  had  been  chosen  and 
were  led  of  God,  and  that  every  part  of  their  life  was  under 
His  divine  control.    No  human  government  could  be  firmly 

*  The  exodus,  within  a  decade,  of  twenty  thousand  persons  from  their  English 
homes  and  their  settlement  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  colony,  constitute  one  of 
the  most  significant  instances  of  race-migration  which  history  can  show. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  1 3 

established,  unless  based  upon  the  divine.  The  principles  of 
this  divine  government  were  clearly  set  forth  in  Scripture, 
and  to  the  Scriptures  one  must  look  if  one  would  learn  the 
will  of  God.  The  way  of  the  churches  was  plainly  described 
there;  and  there  too  was  legislation  for  the  community. 
Accordingly  the  colonists  made  a  double  appeal  to  the  Bible, 
as  to  a  God-appointed  constitution  for  the  church  and  for  the 
state,  —  with  the  natural  result  that  their  type  of  govern- 
ment during  all  the  early  years  was  decidedly  theocratic. 

Furthermore,  large  numbers  of  ministers  came  to  New 
England,  —  nearly  one  hundred  of  them  in  the  first  twenty 
years,  —  and  nearly  all  accepted  parish  charges.  These 
ministers  were  for  the  most  part  graduates  of  the  University 
of  Cambridge,  the  nursery  of  puritanism,  and  they  repre- 
sented a  much  higher  professional  type  than  the  clergy  who 
went  to  Virginia  and  Maryland,  where  their  influence  was 
comparatively  slight.  The  high  intellectual  and  spiritual 
level  on  which  the  New  England  ministers  stood,  and  the 
popular  respect  which  they  immediately  gained,  greatly 
strengthened  the  theocratic  tendency.  They  were  con- 
stantly consulted  by  the  magistrates  and  governors,  not 
only  on  matters  pertaining  to  religion,  but  also  on  questions 
of  colonial  policy  and  legislation.  Their  advice  was  freely 
given,  sometimes  even  before  it  had  been  asked;  yet  it  was 
never  unwelcome.  In  1635,  the  Rev.  John  Cotton  drew  up,  for 
the  use  of  the  General  Court,  a  law-code  based  upon  "  Moses, 
his  judicials,"  and  this,  or  something  like  it,  formed  a  large 
part  of  the  groundwork  of  the  legislation  in  the  Bay  colony 
for  many  years.  Citations  of  Biblical  authority  were  deemed 
conclusive  in  the  court  room,  and  capital  punishment  long 
continued  to  be  inflicted  for  a  variety  of  offences  specified  in 
the  book  of  Leviticus. 

This  mixture  of  law  and  religion  of  course  gave  rise  to 
difficulties,  and  aroused  criticism.     It  was  the  persistent 


14  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

exercise  of  jurisdiction  over  offences  "  against  the  first  table 
of  the  law"  (i.  e.,  against  the  first  four  commandments  of 
the  decalogue)  that  provoked  the  open  hostility  of  Roger 
WilUams  against  the  authorities,  and  caused  him  to  protest 
that  the  things  of  God  and  the  things  of  Caesar  should  not 
thus  be  confounded,  —  a  protest  which  brought  him  into 
trouble.  Yet  for  more  than  a  generation  the  theocracy 
maintained  its  hold  upon  the  colony,  and  when  at  last  it  fell, 
it  was  only  after  bitter  controversy,  and  amid  the  lamenta- 
tions of  the  conservatives,  who  sincerely  believed  that  the 
days  of  New  England's  greatness  were  ended. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  democracy,  the  very  thing  towards 
which  the  Congregational  movement  tended,  should  have 
been  so  much  distrusted  by  the  early  New  England  leaders, 
as  it  still  is  today  by  some  of  their  successors.  In  a  letter 
to  Thomas  Hooker,  Winthrop  once  "  expostulated  about 
the  unwarrantableness  and  unsafeness  of  referring  matter 
of  counsel  or  judicature  to  the  body  of  the  people,  quia  the 
best  part  is  always  the  least,  and  of  that  best  part  the  wiser 
part  is  always  the  lesser."  John  Cotton  frankly  expressed 
his  disbelief  that  God  ever  ordained  the  democratic  form  of 
government,  either  for  church  or  for  commonwealth,  adding 
this  poser,  —  "If  the  people  be  governors,  who  shall  be 
governed  ?  "  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  a  great  cause 
has  been  promoted  by  those  who  profoundly  disbelieved  in  it. 

To  maintain  the  purity  and  propriety  of  the  colony,  and 
to  perpetuate  the  chosen  governmental  system,  the  magis- 
trates of  Massachusetts  Bay  watchfully  supervised  all  per- 
sons who  came  within  its  borders.  It  was  entirely  natural 
and  praiseworthy  that  they  should  exclude  such  obviously 
undesirable  citizens  as  Thomas  Morton,  of  Merrymount 
fame,  and  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner,  along  with  the  "  comely 
young  woman  "with  whom  he  set  up  his  irregular  residence 
at  Neponset.    Less  justifiable,  however,  seems  the  exclusion 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  1 5 

of  the  "  Antinomians,"  of  whom  Anne  Hutchinson  was 
chief,  and  of  the  Quakers,  and  all  persons  leaning  towards 
episcopacy.  The  attitude  of  the  New  England  standing 
order  towards  dissenters  was  not  unlike  that  in  the  mother 
country,  only  with  the  roles  reversed.  Our  forefathers  were, 
no  doubt,  intolerant;  they  made  no  claim  to  be  anything 
else.  They  closed  their  doors  against  dissent.  They  limited 
the  franchise  to  members  of  recognized  churches.  They 
levied  public  taxes  for  the  support  of  rehgion  in  the  towns. 
But  they  did  these  things  because  only  through  such  means 
could  they  assure  stabihty  for  their  institutions,  and  prevent 
political  and  ecclesiastical  disintegration.  All  their  pre- 
cautionary measures  were  but  the  outward  expression  of  a 
fundamental  religious  loyalty.^  They  would  not  tolerate  a 
godless  government  or  a  merely  secular  society;  everything 
should  be  permeated  by  the  divine  life,  and  based  upon  the 
divine  authority  to  which  they  had  solemnly  pledged  them- 
selves from  the  first  moment  of  their  high  adventure.  As 
a  result,  they  established  a  commonwealth  so  homogeneous 
in  character,  that  it  retained  many  of  its  distinctive  features 
for  nearly  two  hundred  years  .^ 

The  so-called  Antinomian  Controversy,  which  broke  out 
only  a  few  years  after  the  settlement  of  Boston,  was  the  first 
serious  internal  disturbance  that  the  colonists  were  called 
upon  to  face.  A  variety  of  causes,  —  political,  ecclesiastical, 
and  social,  —  combined  to  render  it  acute.  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son, a  gifted  but  indiscreet  woman,  was  the  centre  of  the 
controversy,  and  the  chief  sufferer  from  it,  but  the  governor 
and  the  ministers  were  also  involved.     Mrs.  Hutchinson's 

^  The  whole  matter  was  thus  briefly  and  accurately  summed  up  by  the  late 
Professor  Diman:  "  The  support  of  religion,  not  the  endowment  of  any  specific 
church  establishment,  was  what  they  had  in  mind." 

^  Professor  Barrett  Wendell,  in  his  Literary  History  of  America,  calls  attention 
to  the  effects  of  this  social  homogeneity  and  isolation  upon  the  remarkable  develop- 
ment of  American  literature  in  the  nineteenth  century. 


1 6  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

dismissal  from  the  Boston  church,  as  well  as  from  the  colony, 
after  an  unfair  trial,  reflected  little  honor  upon  the  elders 
and  magistrates,  but  showed  with  the  utmost  distinctness 
that  no  irregularities  of  belief  or  of  conduct  would  be  tol- 
erated in  Massachusetts.^ 

Some  of  the  Congregationalists  of  New  England  tended 
to  favor  a  presbyterial  system  of  church  government,  and  it 
was  an  open  question  for  a  time  whether  a  few  of  the  churches 
might  not  adopt  that  poHty.  In  Newbury,  for  instance, 
such  a  tendency  was  clearly  discernible,  and  a  synod  was 
convened  at  Cambridge  to  consider  the  whole  matter.^  After 
friendly  consultation,  the  council,  to  quote  Winthrop's 
words,  "  concluded  against  some  parts  of  the  presbyterian 
way."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Massachusetts  churches 
never  proceeded  very  far  in  the  direction  of  Presbyterianism, 
but  in  Connecticut  and  certain  districts  of  Long  Island  there 
was  much  less  hesitation,  as  we  shall  see. 

More  conspicuous  and  permanent  was  the  Baptist  move- 
ment from  the  days  of  Roger  WiUiams  onward.  After  an  un- 
successful effort  to  estabhsh  himself  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
Massachusetts,  Williams  journeyed  southward  and  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Providence  Plantations,  where  later  he 
developed  his  anti-paedobaptist  views  and  put  them  into 
practice.  The  Baptist  churches,  being  Congregational  in 
poUty,  should  not  be  regarded  as  a  strange  or  novel  denomi- 
nation in  New  England,  however  unwelcome  they  may  have 
been  made  there.  The  points  of  difference  relate  to  church 
membership  and  to  the  sacrament  of  baptism,  —  not  to  the 
mode  of  organizing  the  churches.  But  the  points  of  dif- 
ference have  proved  to  be  stronger,  and  have  been  more  tena- 
ciously held,  than  the  points  of  agreement.     Particularly 

*  An  interesting  account  of  Antinomianism  may  be  read  in  Charles  Francis 
Adams's  Three  Episodes  of  Massachusetts  History. 

*  This  assembly  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  well-known  Cambridge  Synod, 
which  met  four  years  later. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  1 7 

in  the  early  days  there  was  hostile  feeling  between  the  two 
denominations,  and  every  effort  was  put  forth  by  the  standing 
order  to  suppress  the  Baptist  movement  at  the  very  outset. 

The  most  significant  event  in  early  Baptist  history,  next 
to  the  work  of  Roger  Williams,  was  the  conversion  of  Presi- 
dent Dunster,  of  Harvard  College,  about  the  year  1650. 
Dunster's  withdrawal  from  Congregational  fellowship,  and 
his  acceptance  of  Baptist  principles,  startled  the  adherents 
of  the  standing  order,  and  greatly  encouraged  the  few  strug- 
gling representatives  of  the  Baptist  cause.  To  allay  public 
alarm,  and  refute  the  threatening  "  errors,"  Jonathan 
Mitchell,  pastor  of  the  church  in  Cambridge,  "  preached 
more  than  half  a  score  of  ungainsayable  sermons  "  in  defense 
of  the  "  comfortable  truth"  of  infant  baptism.  But  not  even 
these  ten  discourses,  or  the  open  opposition  of  the  author- 
ities, sufficed  to  prevent  the  gathering  of  the  first  Baptist 
church  in  Boston  a  few  years  later. 

The  unpleasant  impression  produced  upon  the  modern 
mind  by  the  firm  resistance  against  all  manner  of  "  innova- 
tions," Baptist  or  any  other,  is  partially  offset  by  a  feeling 
of  satisfaction  over  the  whole-hearted  devotion  to  the  welfare 
of  the  surrounding  Indian  tribes,  displayed  by  some  of  the 
colonists.  To  convert  the  Indians  to  Christianity  had  indeed 
been  one  of  the  avowed  aims  of  the  settlers  of  New  England, 
but  the  engrossing  activities  and  the  hardships  of  pioneer 
life  had  left  them  little  room  for  missionary  labor.  Yet  at 
least  one  minister,  John  Eliot  of  Roxbury,  carried  mission- 
ary responsibility  on  his  heart,  devoting  long  and  patient 
labor  to  the  acquisition  of  the  Indian  language,  until  he 
quaUfied  himself  to  use  it  in  preaching  to  the  red  men  of 
Nonantum.^    He  also  translated  the  Bible  for  their  daily  use, 

^  An  interesting  almanac,  prepared  by  Samuel  Danforth  for  the  year  1649,  con- 
tains a  chronological  table  of  events,  in  which  we  find  this  entry:  1646,  "  Mr.  Eliot 
began  to  preach  to  ye  Indians  in  their  own  language." 

Eliot's  Indian  Bible  was  printed  in  Cambridge,  on  the  press  of  Stephen  Daye. 


1 8  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  his  efforts  were  rewarded  by  the  gathering  of  an  Indian 
church  at  Natick.  Similar  efforts  were  put  forth  by  the 
Mahews  at  Martha's  Vineyard,  and  thence  in  time  came 
an  Indian  lad  to  Harvard  College,  to  receive  his  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1665, 

Notwithstanding  Eliot's  disinterested  labors  in  their  be- 
half, Christian  work  among  the  Indians  lagged.  He  seems 
to  have  had  no  successors  who  were  equal  to  the  task,  and 
the  indefatigable  diarist.  Judge  Sewall,  is  presently  found 
piously  lamenting  the  futility  of  all  efforts  for  the  conversion 
of  the  natives,  and  even  venturing  to  imply  a  criticism  of 
the  divine  inactivity  in  the  matter.  He  writes  to  Stephen 
Dummer  that  he  is  persuaded  it  would  be  "  a  most  acceptable 
sacrifice  to  God  importunately  to  beseech  him  to  put  his 
hand  to  that  work,  and  not  in  a  great  measure,  as  it  were,  to 
stand  and  look  on."  But  neither  prayers  nor  efforts  seemed 
to  avail,  and  King  Philip's  War  finally  put  an  end  to  active 
missionary  propaganda  in  Massachusetts.  Such  measures 
as  were  taken  thereafter  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians 
were  due  chiefly  to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  New  England,  which  had  been  organized  by  the 
Long  Parliament  in  consequence  of  the  interest  aroused  in 
England  by  what  EHot  had  done.^ 

What  may  be  regarded  as  the  opening  chapter  of  New 
England  Congregationalism  ends  with  the  historic  Cam- 
bridge Synod,  of  which  the  most  important  sessions  were 
held  in  the  year  1648.  This  was  the  first  and  only  general 
synod  of  the  free  churches  of  New  England  during  the  entire 
colonial  period,  and  it  had  no  successor  until  the  Albany 
Convention  of  1852.  Some  fifty  churches,  from  all  four  of 
the  federated  colonies,  were  represented  by  their  elders  and 

The  few  surviving  copies,  —  rarissima,  among  collectors, — are  probably  the  least 
read  books  in  the  world  at  the  present  time. 

1  This  society  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  later  (Anglican)  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  which  dates  from  1701. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  1 9 

messengers,  and  the  Synod  felt  itself  qualified  to  consider 
any  problem  of  church  government  or  discipline,  although 
it  had  no  direct  legislative  authority.  Its  most  important 
conclusions  are  embodied  in  the  Cambridge  Platform,  drawn 
up  for  the  most  part  by  Richard  Mather,  which  sets  forth 
what  we  may  regard  as  the  general  ecclesiastical  practice  of 
the  period. 

The  substance  of  the  Platform  may  be  inferred  from  its 
definition  of  the  church: 

A  Congregational  Church  is,  by  the  institution  of  Christ,  a  part  of 
the  militant  visible  church,  consisting  of  a  company  of  saints  by  call- 
ing, united  into  one  body,  by  a  holy  covenant,  for  the  public  worship 
of  God  and  the  mutual  edification  one  of  another,  in  the  fellowship 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  (Platform,  II,  6). 

This  definition  states  with  the  utmost  clearness  the  funda- 
mental tenet  of  Congregationalism,  namely,  the  autonomy 
of  the  individual  church.  The  Platform  proceeds  to  assert 
that  the  church  is  "  before,  and  independent  of  "  its  officers; 
that  there  is  no  visible  universal  church,  that  is,  none  greater 
than  a  congregation  "which  may  ordinarily  meet  in  one 
place  ";  but  that  the  churches  have  a  sort  of  collective  life 
by  means  of  the  mutual  exercise  of  "  fellowship."  The 
name,  "  Independent,"  instead  of  Congregational,  is  not 
approved.  In  England,  however,  that  denominational  name 
became  in  time  very  popular. 

The  question  of  a  creed  came  before  the  Synod,  but  it  was 
decided  that  no  new  formula  was  needed.  The  Westminster 
Assembly  of  Divines  had  just  completed  its  Confession  of 
Faith,  and  this,  being  a  good  Calvinistic  symbol,  was  adopted, 
for  substance  of  doctrine,  by  the  Cambridge  Synod.  There 
was,  however,  some  objection  to  the  article  on  "  Vocation," 
with  regard  to  which  a  few  of  the  New  England  fathers  ap- 
pear to  have  cherished  doubts.  Thus,  from  the  first,  the 
Westminster  Confession  took  its  place  in  the  religious  history 


20  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

of  America;  it  was  re-adopted,  with  a  few  slight  modifica- 
tions, by  the  Boston  Synod  of  1680,  and  remained  for  gen- 
erations the  accepted  doctrinal  standard  of  New  England 
Congregationalism. 

The  action  of  the  Cambridge  Synod  met  with  practically 
mianimous  approval  throughout  New  England,  after  the 
scruples  of  a  few  of  the  most  strongly  indi\idualistic  churches 
against  any  and  every  effort  after  collective  action  had  been 
overcome.  There  was  no  attempt  to  put  the  new  standards 
into  force  until  they  had  been  approved  by  the  several 
churches,  which  alone,  it  was  insisted,  possessed  the  power 
to  legislate,  each  for  itself.  After  approval  had  thus  been 
secured,  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  officially  en- 
dorsed the  Platform,  which  in  effect  conferred  upon  the 
churches  which  it  represented  a  quasi-establishment.  Con- 
gregationalism was  indeed,  from  that  time  on,  the  standing 
order  of  New  England. 

We  must  not  leave  the  Cambridge  Synod  without  noticing 
an  incident  at  the  opening  of  its  most  important  session, 
which  illustrates  the  vivid  consciousness  of  the  divine 
presence,  always  cherished  among  the  colonists.  During 
the  sermon  a  snake  wriggled  into  a  seat  near  the  pulpit, 
and,  after  causing  some  natural  commotion,  was  killed  by 
one  of  the  elders.  The  incident  was  not  allowed  to  pass 
without  pious  interpretation.  "  Without  doubt,"  writes 
Winthrop  in  his  Journal,  "  the  Lord  discovered  somewhat 
of  his  mind  in  it.  The  serpent  is  the  devil;  the  synod,  the 
representatives  of  the  churches  of  New  England.  The  devil 
had  formerly  and  lately  attempted  their  disturbance  and 
dissolution;  but  their  faith  in  the  seed  of  the  woman  over- 
came him  and  crushed  his  head  "  (Journal,  II,  pp.  347  f.). 

While  the  churches  were  thus  consolidating  their  govern- 
ment and  discipline,  the  western  drift  of  population  had 
already  begun,  carrying  organized  reUgion  with  it.    Among 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  21 

the  first  migrations  was  that  of  Thomas  Hooker  and  his 
flock,  from  Newtowne  (Cambridge)  to  what  was  destined 
to  become  the  important  city  of  Hartford.  Others  went 
from  Watertown,  Dorchester,  and  Roxbury,  to  establish 
settlements  at  Wethersfield,  Windsor,  and  Springfield.  The 
town  and  church  of  New  Haven  were  founded  but  little  later, 
under  the  leadership  of  John  Davenport  and  Theophilus 
Eaton.  All  these  churches  had  their  origin  prior  to  the 
year  1640,  and  all  played  an  important  part  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Connecticut  valley  and  southern  New  England. 
In  polity,  however,  some  of  them  diverged  from  the  Massa- 
chusetts pattern,  and  we  shall  presently  have  an  opportunity 
to  see  how,  in  the  Saybrook  Platform,  the  Connecticut 
churches  leaned  towards  the  Presbyterianism  of  their 
neighbors  on  the  west. 


II.  THE  PERIOD  OF  CHURCH  DOMINANCE 

Within  twenty  years  from  the  first  settlement  of  Boston, 
ecclesiastical  and  civil  society  had  become  securely  estab- 
lished, and  were  in  good  working  order  throughout  the  Puri- 
tan communities  which  together  made  up  New  England.^ 
The  hfe  of  the  inhabitants  was  simple,  in  comparison  with 
ours,  yet  it  was  dignified  and  on  formal  occasions  even  cere- 
monious. Apart  from  general  care  for  the  public  safety, 
which  the  hazards  of  frontier  life  rendered  imperative,  the 
chief  occupations  were  manual  labor  of  various  kinds,  read- 
ing, and  the  exercises  of  religion.  "It  is  never  to  be  for- 
gotten," wrote  John  Higginson  some  years  later,  "  that  our 
New  England  is  originally  a  plantation  of  religion,  and  not 
a  plantation  of  trade.  If  any  man  among  us  makes  religion 
as  twelve,  and  the  world  as  thirteen,  let  such  a  man  know 
that  he  hath  neither  the  spirit  of  a  true  New  England  man, 
nor  yet  of  a  sincere  Christian."  This  plan  of  life  was  indeed 
that  of  the  leading  spirits,  among  the  laity  as  well  as  among 
the  clergy,  throughout  the  period  before  us.  There  were 
no  public  amusements  and  no  newspapers.  Travel,  being 
attended  with  some  risk,  was  attempted  only  within  narrow 
Umits,  unless  forced  by  necessity;  it  was  never  a  means  of 
recreation.  The  stated  services  of  the  Sabbath,  together 
with  the  Thursday  lecture,  furnished  decorous  opportunity 
of  meeting  friends  and  neighbors,  and  supplied  to  the  people 
their  chief  intellectual  as  well  as  spiritual  stimulus. 

The  meeting-houses  were  plain  to  severity,  but  dignified, 
and  sometimes  their  fines  were  not  without  architectural 
beauty.  Greater  emphasis  was  laid  upon  social  distinctions 
than  we   should  have  expected  to  find,   and  the  seating 

1  The  region  of  Rhode  Island  ought  perhaps  to  be  excepted,  not  because  it  was 
not  Puritan,  but  because  its  institutions  developed  along  somewhat  different  lines. 
See  I.  B.  Richman,  Rhode  Island;   its  Making  and  its  Meaning.     2d  ed.  1908. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  23 

arrangements  of  the  churches  were  carefully  worked  out  with 
this  in  view.  To  each  seat  was  assigned  a  social  valuation. 
In  time  this  was  reduced  to  a  system.  Thus  in  Deerfield,  in 
1 701,  it  was  officially  determined  that  "  the  fore  seat  in  the 
front  gallery  shall  be  equal  in  dignity  with  the  second  seat 
in  the  body  of  the  meeting-house."  Inferior  seats  were  set 
apart  for  domestic  servants  and  for  slaves.  In  the  Presby- 
terian church  at  Newburyport,  built  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  one  may  still  see  the  pews  in  one  corner 
of  the  gallery,  where  negro  slaves  were  seated.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  elders  and  deacons  had  seats  of  especial  honor  near 
the  pulpit,  and  usually  facing  the  congregation.^ 

On  the  Lord's  Day  there  were  two  preaching  services,  the 
first  in  the  morning,  earlier  than  is  now  customary,  and  the 
second  early  in  the  afternoon.  Scripture  reading  (with 
comments),  prayer,  psalmody,  and  a  sermon,  made  up  the 
order  of  exercises.  Nothing  in  the  slightest  degree  suggestive 
of  hturgical  worship,  —  not  even  "  dumb  reading,"  —  was 
for  a  moment  tolerated.^  The  Bible  version  in  common  use 
among  the  first  settlers  was  that  of  Geneva,  not  the  King 
James  Version,  which  was  slow  in  supplanting  it.  Sternhold 
and  Hopkins's  metrical  version  of  the  Psalms  was  available 
for  the  singing,  but  before  long  New  England  had  a  version 
of  its  own, — the  Bay  Psalm  Book,  which  was  the  first  book 
printed  in   the   colony.     Fuller's   quaint  criticism  of   the 

^  See  D.  W.  Howe,  The  Puritan  Republic  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  chap.  8,  where 
much  interesting  information  about  ecclesiastical  customs,  etc.,  is  presented. 

The  importance  attached  to  social  position  in  early  New  England  finds  further 
proof  in  a  practice  of  the  two  colleges,  Harvard  and  Yale,  whereby  the  names  of 
their  students  were  arranged,  not  alphabetically,  but  according  to  their  social 
standing.  See  the  Quinquennial  Catalogues.  The  alphabetical  arrangement  be- 
gins at  Yale  with  the  class  of  1769,  and  at  Harvard  with  the  class  of  1773.  The  older 
custom  came  to  an  end  just  in  time  to  permit  graduates  of  the  two  colleges  to  join 
in  the  social  creed  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal." 

*  "Dumb  reading"  v/as  a  term  of  reproach,  applied  to  the  custom  of  reading 
from  the  Bible  without  comments,  as  in  the  church  of  England. 


24  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

former  would  apply  equally  well  to  the  latter;  the  authors 
"  had  drunk  more  of  Jordan  than  of  Helicon."  In  fact  they 
felt  free  from  any  necessity  to  drink  of  Helicon  at  all,  and 
frankly  admitted  it.  *'  The  Lord's  Altar,"  said  they,  "  needs 
not  our  poUishings;   Ex.  20." 

The  Psahns  were  "lined  off,"  and  one  of  the  better  singers 
in  the  congregation  was  appointed  to  "  set  the  tune."  Judge 
Sewall  was  for  many  years  leader  of  the  singing  at  the  Old 
South  Church,  and  his  Diary  records  a  melancholy  experi- 
ence, when  by  reason  of  age  he  had  ceased  to  be  acceptable 
to  the  young  people,  in  the  exercise  of  this  important  func- 
tion. "  In  the  morning,"  he  writes,  "  I  set  York  tune;  and 
in  the  second  going  over  the  gallery  carried  it  irresistibly  to 
St.  David's,  which  discouraged  me  very  much."  There  was 
no  help  from  any  musical  instrument,  for  organs  were  held 
in  contempt  by  the  Puritans.  "  One  groan  in  the  spirit," 
said  Sir  Edward  Deering  in  the  Long  Parliament,  "  is  worth 
the  diapason  of  all  the  church  music  in  the  world."  And  so 
thought  the  New  England  fathers. 

Certain  ceremonies  which,  to  modern  thinking,  are  properly 
regarded  as  religious,  were  by  the  early  colonists  deemed 
secular,  for  reasons  which  might  be  logical,  but  seem  to  us 
inadequate.  Such  were  marriages  and  funerals.  These  were 
held  to  be  no  affair  of  the  church,  since  all  may  marry,  if 
they  will,  and  all  must  die.  The  ceremonies  of  the  church 
were  solely  for  the  elect.  The  precedent  was  set  at  Plymouth 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  colony's  existence.  According 
to  Bradford's  History,^  "  May  12,  [1621,]  was  the  first 
marriage  in  this  place,  which,  according  to  the  laudable  cus- 
tom of  the  Low  Countries,  .  .  .  was  thought  most  requisite 
to  be  performed  by  the  magistrate,  as  being  a  civil  thing, 
.  .  .  and  nowhere  found  in  the  Gospel  to  be  laid  on  the  min- 
isters as  a  part  of  their  office."    This  precedent  was  long 

*  Bradford's  History  of  the  Plymouth  Plantation,  p.  ii6. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  25 

observed  by  the  Congregational  churches  of  New  England. 
Palfrey  could  find  no  instance  of  prayer  at  a  funeral  earlier 
than  1685,  nor  any  instance  of  a  marriage  by  a  minister 
before  1686. 

The  religious  observance  of  even  the  most  important  festi- 
vals of  the  ecclesiastical  year  was  studiously  avoided,  as 
savoring  of  prelacy  if  not  of  popery.  Even  so  late  as  the 
eve  of  the  American  Revolution,  Ezra  Stiles  thought  it 
worthy  of  record  that  a  young  Baptist  minister  in  Newport 
had  ventured  to  preach  a  Christmas  sermon.  "  So  this  looks 
more  like  keeping  Christmas  than  anything  that  ever  before 
appeared  among  the  Baptists  or  Congregationalists  in  New 
England "  (Stiles,  Diary,  1,  pp.  S24L).  The  well-known 
incident  of  certain  new-comers  in  Plymouth,  who  had  con- 
scientious scruples  against  working  on  Christmas  Day,  and 
accordingly  were  excused  from  their  appointed  tasks,  —  but 
who  afterwards  were  found  to  entertain  no  scruples  whatever 
with  regard  to  play,  and  accordingly  were  punished,  —  is 
related  by  Governor  Bradford  with  sardonic  humor. 

The  exercise  of  church  discipline  was  usually  entrusted  to 
the  elders,  although  usage  was  not  uniform  in  this  regard. 
The  early  church  records  prove  that  disciplinary  cases  were 
not  infrequent.  Judgments  were  pronounced  in  accordance 
with  the  Scriptures,  especially  the  Mosaic  laws.  But  some 
offences  which,  with  us,  would  naturally  be  thought  to  fall 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  church,  were  then  tried  by  civil 
magistrates,  and  vice  versa.  The  two  kinds  of  jurisdiction 
were  closely  and  intimately  related,  as  they  had  been  in 
Geneva,  and,  under  a  very  different  ecclesiastical  system, 
in  Roman  Catholic  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

On  rare  occasions  church  discipline  seems  almost  to  have 
broken  down,  owing  to  the  operation  of  forces  so  purely 
human  as  to  provoke  a  smile  from  the  modern  reader.  This 
was  the  case  in  the  early  days  in  Boston,  when  magistrates 


26  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  elders  attempted  to  cooperate  in  enforcing  sumptuary 
regulations,  but  without  success: 

The  court,  taking  into  consideration  the  great  disorder  general 
throughout  the  country  in  costliness  of  apparel,  and  following  new 
fashions,  sent  for  the  elders  of  the  churches,  and  conferred  with  them 
about  it,  and  laid  it  upon  them,  as  belonging  to  them,  to  redress  it, 
.  .  .  which  they  promised  to  do.  But  little  was  done  about  it;  for 
divers  of  the  elders'  wives,  etc.,  were  in  some  measure  partners  in  this 
general  disorder.^ 

There  were  forces  at  work  in  New  England  to  which  even 
the  leaders  of  the  theocracy  were  obliged  to  submit.  But 
instances  of  defeat  were  not  common,  and  on  the  whole, 
judicial  process  in  the  state,  and  disciplinary  process  in  the 
church,  went  on  uninterrupted  to  their  appointed  ends. 

The  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  witnessed  many 
political  and  religious  changes  in  Massachusetts,  of  which 
the  former  were  more  obvious,  but  the  latter  were  not  less 
real.  King  Philip's  War,  which  was  both  disastrous  and 
costly,  wrought  disturbing  effects  upon  morals  and  religion. 
The  mission  to  America  of  Edward  Randolph,  described  as 
a  royal  messenger,  but  in  fact  a  spy,  embittered  the  colonists 
against  the  English  government,  and  their  bitterness  was 
intensified  by  the  revocation  of  the  colonial  charter  and  the 
appointment  of  a  royal  governor  in  the  person  of  Joseph 
Dudley.  He  was  presently  succeeded  by  Sir  Edmund  Andros, 
who  landed  in  Boston  shortly  before  Christmas,  1686,  and 
brought  with  him  a  pomp  and  circumstance  to  which  puritan 
New  England  was  unaccustomed  and  which  it  cordially  dis- 
liked. He  brought  also  the  cross  of  St.  George,  which  was 
religiously  obnoxious,  and  a  body-guard  of  red-coats,  who 
distributed  contempt  and  profanity  among  the  people.  By 
no  means  least,  in  the  catalogue  of  his  offences,  was  the  in- 
troduction of  episcopacy,  which  flaunted  its  hated  cere- 

^  Winthrop's  Journal,  I,  p.  279. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  2/ 

monies  in  the  very  face  of  the  ministers  and  elders,  now 
helpless  to  prevent  them.  An  Anglican  clergyman,  Robert 
RatcHffe,  landed  in  Boston  in  1686,  and  with  him  begins  the 
celebration  of  the  sacraments  and  the  conduct  of  public 
worship  according  to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  "  Baal's 
priest,"  some  of  the  puritan  fathers  contemptuously  dubbed 
him.  A  church  was  organized  the  same  year,  and  as  none  of 
the  existing  congregations  would  lend  its  place  of  worship 
for  such  an  unscriptural  purpose,  the  Episcopalians  were 
forced  to  hold  their  first  services  in  a  small  room  in  the  town 
house.  The  Old  South  meeting-house  was  finally  compelled 
to  open  its  doors  to  the  royal  governor,  —  they  were  in  fact 
forced  open  on  a  Good  Friday,  —  and  thus  the  Episcopal 
enterprise  went  lamely  on  until  the  completion  of  the  first 
King's  Chapel. 

News  of  the  revolution  which  overthrew  the  Stuarts  and 
brought  William  of  Orange  to  the  throne  of  England  was 
eagerly  and  joyfully  received  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  and 
was  followed  by  a  local  uprising  in  Boston  which  resulted  in 
the  arrest  and  imprisonment  of  Andros  and  Randolph,  and 
the  downfall  of  their  government.  Meanwhile  Increase 
Mather,  the  leading  figure  among  the  ministers  of  New 
England,  by  patient  and  skillful  diplomacy  abroad,  secured 
a  new  charter,  under  which  Plymouth  and  the  Bay  Colony 
were  united,  and  self-government  once  more  became  a  possi- 
biHty,  although  governor  and  council  were  still  appointed 
by  the  crown.  From  this  time  onwards,  until  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  all  the  American  colonies  developed  on  the 
same  general  fines,  politically  speaking.  "  Everywhere  the 
Assembly  claimed  for  itself  the  powers  and  privileges  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  everywhere  it  denied  that  the 
Council  bore  any  resemblance  to  the  House  of  Lords."  ^ 
Thus  the  colonists  continued  quietly  to   train  themselves 

^  Channing,  History  of  the  United  States,  II,  p.  248. 


28  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  the  art  of  self-government,  and  to  prepare  for  independ- 
ent national  life,  as  part  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

It  was  impossible  for  Increase  Mather,  notwithstanding 
all  his  skill  and  all  his  personal  interest,  to  secure  under  a 
new  charter  such  exclusive  privileges  for  the  churches  of  the 
standing  order  as  they  had  enjoyed  under  the  old.  Here 
and  there  a  church  of  another  denomination  had  already  in- 
vaded territory  formerly  occupied  by  the  Congregationahsts,^ 
and  even  among  the  Congregationalists  themselves  voices 
were  heard,  criticizing  the  conservatism  typified  by  the 
Mathers.  The  signs  of  change  were  small,  but  unmistakable, 
and  there  was  anxiety  among  the  upholders  of  the  old 
theocracy. 

Most  significant  of  the  emergence  of  a  changing  spirit  was 
the  formation  in  Boston  in  1699  of  a  new  church,  without 
consultation  with  the  neighboring  churches  and  without  per- 
mission from  the  magistrates,  —  the  Brattle  Street  Church, 
—  whose  early  history  is  intimately  connected  with  that  of 
Harvard  College.  Among  the  fourteen  original  members 
were  two  college  tutors  and  the  college  treasurer.  The  first 
minister  was  Benjamin  Colman,  a  Harvard  graduate,  who, 
instead  of  seeking  ordination  in  the  regular  way  at  the  hands 
of  the  elders  of  New  England,  was  ordained  to  the  ministry 
by  the  Presbytery  of  London,  and  assumed  his  pastorate  in 
Boston  without  further  ceremony.  "  A  wandering  Levite, 
who  has  no  flock,"  was  Increase  Mather's  picturesque  and 
Bibhcal  phrase,  descriptive  of  Colman's  ecclesiastical  irregu- 
larity. 

The  prospective  members  of  the  new  church  issued  a  mani- 
festo in  which  they  declared  their  allegiance  to  the  West- 
minster Confession  of  Faith,  but  at  the  same  time  advocated 

1  In  1679  a  Baptist  meeting-house  was  erected  in  Boston,  but  only  by  the  ruse 
of  concealing  its  ecclesiastical  purpose  from  public  knowledge.  The  first  Episcopal 
Church  was  built  in  16S9. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  29 

certain  novelties  in  worship  and  discipline.  They  would 
have  from  their  pulpit  "  dumb  reading  "  of  the  Scriptures, 
instead  of  reading  with  comments  by  the  minister;  they 
would  abandon  the  requirement  of  public  "  relations  "  from 
persons  joining  the  church;  they  would  permit  others  than 
church  members  to  have  a  voice  in  the  selection  of  a  pastor; 
and  they  would  admit  to  baptism  the  children  of  parents  who 
had  not  entered  into  covenant  fellowship  with  them. 

This  programme  was  viewed  by  the  older  churches  of 
Boston  as  lawless  and  highly  reprehensible,  but  the  time- 
spirit  can  be  seen  at  work  in  all  its  innovations.  The 
abandonment  of  "  relations  "  marks  the  recognition  of  the 
impropriety  of  exposing  the  soul's  innermost  experiences  to 
the  public  gaze.  Religious  reticence  was  destined  greatly  to 
increase  with  the  lapse  of  years,  and  indeed  to  proceed  so  far 
that  at  last  it  would  be  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say,  as  did 
President  Quincy,  of  Harvard  College,  that  religion  had 
"  withdrawn  from  the  domestic  altar  to  the  retirement  of 
the  mind." 

The  admission  to  baptism  of  children  whose  parents  were 
not  church  members  introduces  us  to  the  consideration  of 
what  was  called  the  *'  Half-way  Covenant,"  —  an  institution 
which  played  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  Massachu- 
setts, since  it  had  poHtical  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  implica- 
tions. It  was  customary  in  the  churches  to  require  evidence 
of  regeneration,  as  a  condition  of  admission  to  membership, 
and  this  evidence  was  expected  to  be  clear  and  unmistakable. 
Only  persons  in  full  covenant  membership  were  entitled  to 
present  their  children  for  baptism.  But  what  was  to  be  said 
of  baptized  persons  who  reached  maturity  without  con- 
sciously experiencing  regeneration?  Were  they,  or  were 
they  not,  entitled  to  any  of  the  privileges  of  the  church  ? 
There  was  long  and  earnest  discussion  of  these  questions. 
They  were  brought  before  local  synods,  and  even  came  into 


30  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  legislature,  in  connection  with  the  question  of  the  fran- 
chise. Some  churches  refused  to  consider  any  baptized 
person  as  an  outsider,  yet  it  was  not  easy  to  determine  pre- 
cisely what  his  ecclesiastical  privileges  should  be. 

In  the  end  a  qualifkd  sanction  was  given  to  the  practice 
of  admitting  all  baptized  persons  to  Half-way  Covenant 
membership,  —  "  associate  membership,"  it  would  now  be 
called,  —  whereby,  upon  condition  of  "  owning  the  cove- 
nant "  and  promising  to  conform  to  the  discipline  of  the 
church,  they  received  certain  limited  privileges,  such  as  the 
right  to  present  their  own  children  for  baptism.  Usually 
they  were  not  admitted  to  the  Lord's  table,  although  a  few 
instances  of  that  occurred,  nor  did  they  as  a  rule  obtain  the 
franchise.  Nevertheless,  the  formal  recognition  of  a  class 
of  church  members,  not  consciously  regenerate  and  not  under 
full  covenant  obligations,  inevitably  tended  to  relax  the  old 
strictness,  and  to  weaken  the  hold  of  the  churches  upon  the 
popular  imagination.  New  England  puritanism  was  un- 
questionably somewhat  secularized  in  the  process,  but  a 
counter  change  was  wrought  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
the  Great  Awakening,  which  did  much  to  recover  the  lost 
ground. 

The  foundation  of  the  Brattle  Street  Church,  with  all  the 
attendant  circumstances,  unquestionably  loosened  the  hold  of 
the  conservatives  upon  Harvard  College  and  upon  the  church 
life  of  Boston.  But  they  were  reluctant  to  be  set  aside,  and 
made  strenuous  efforts  to  maintain  their  position.  Early  in 
1700,  Increase  Mather  published  his  Order  of  the  Gospel,  a 
controversial  work  in  which  he  rebukes  the  recent  "  innova- 
tions," and,  along  with  a  constructive  statement  of  the 
standing  order  and  disciphne,  expresses  the  hope  that  the 
churches  will  pray  for  the  college,  "  that  God  will  ever  bless 
that  society  with  faithful  tutors  that  will  .  .  .  not  hanker 
after  new  and  loose  ways."    The  year  after  the  publication 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  3 1 

of  this  querulous  book,  Mather  retired  from  the  presidency 
of  Harvard,  and  thereafter  confined  himself  to  his  pastoral 
labors  in  the  Second  Church  of  Boston,  where  his  son,  Cotton 
Mather,  was  associated  with  hun,  and  eventually  became 
his  successor.  So  high,  however,  was  the  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held,  —  for  he  was  without  question  the  foremost 
minister  in  America,  —  that  his  advice  and  counsel  were 
constantly  sought  on  all  sorts  of  matters  pertaining  to  edu- 
cation and  religion,  and  for  many  years  he  exercised  an 
influence  not  unlike  that  of  a  bishop  in  the  Episcopal  com- 
munion. Only  among  the  progressives  were  the  Mathers 
less  highly  regarded,  since  they  seemed  to  represent  a  super- 
seded order.  Their  last  days  were  tinged  with  the  melan- 
choly that  enters  into  the  souls  of  men  who  see  the  world 
slipping  by  them,  and  are  powerless  to  hold  it  back. 

Among  the  factors  which  contributed  to  discredit  the 
Mathers,  —  although  its  influence  was  not  immediate  or 
decisive,  —  was  the  part  they  played  in  the  persecution  of 
alleged  witches.  In  this  sad  and  tragic  episode  in  New 
England  history  one  may  see  how  much  of  fear  and  how 
much  of  superstition  still  Ungered  among  the  most  intelligent 
of  men.  America,  however,  was  not  unique  in  cherishing  the 
delusion  of  a  behef  in  witchcraft.  Indeed  the  persecutions  in 
New  England  were  mild  in  comparison  with  what  took  place 
in  parts  of  Europe.  For  the  belief  was  general,  and  to  many 
persons  it  seemed  inseparable  from  behef  in  the  Bible  and 
in  God.^  The  prevalent  ideas  on  the  subject  were  clearly  set 
forth  in  Cotton  Mather's  Discourse  on  Witchcraft,  preached 
in  Boston  in  1689.  In  the  course  of  this  elaborate  discussion 
of  the  subject,  Mather  finds  two  proofs  that  witchcraft 
exists;    the  testimony  of  Scripture,  and  the  evidence  of 

*  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  the  famous  physician  and  philosopher,  could  say:  "  I 
have  ever  believed,  and  do  now  know,  that  there  are  witches.  They  that  doubt  of 
these  do  not  only  deny  them,  but  spirits:  and  are  obliquely,  and  upon  consequence, 
a  sort,  not  of  infidels,  but  atheists  "  (Religio  Medici,  I,  p.  30). 


32  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

experience.  For  the  former  he  appeals  to  the  narrative  of 
the  Witch  of  Endor  (I  Sam.  xx) ,  and  for  the  latter,  he  cites 
examples  from  recent  history.  New  England  was  regarded 
as  an  especially  favorable  scene  for  diaboUcal  operations, 
since  it  was  a  wilderness,  —  in  which  by  preference  devils 
were  beUeved  to  dwell,  —  and  their  resentment  at  being 
dispossessed,  especially  by  the  chosen  people  of  God,  could 
easily  be  understood.  Hence  the  violence  of  their  hostility, 
as  evidenced  by  the  outbreak  of  cases  of  "  possession  "  in 
Salem  and  in  Andover. 

There  was  an  official  investigation,  by  a  commission  ap- 
pointed by  the  governor,  and  in  the  year  1692,  when  the 
epidemic  reached  its  climax,  there  were  twenty  executions, 
mostly  by  hanging.^  But  the  popular  excitement  died  out 
almost  as  quickly  as  it  had  arisen,  and  some  of  those  who 
had  been  most  active  in  the  persecutions  aftenvards  re- 
pented, and  publicly  confessed  their  grievous  error.  But 
neither  Increase  Mather  nor  his  son  Cotton  betrayed  any 
consciousness  of  having  been  mistaken,  much  less  did  they 
confess  it.  On  the  contrary,  their  confidence  in  the  local 
triumph  of  diabolism  seems  to  have  remained  unshaken.  As 
in  the  beginning  the  land  was  the  abode  of  evil  demons,  so  in 
the  end  the  devil  would  claim  his  own.  In  a  sermon  preached 
at  Harvard  College,  late  in  1696,  President  Mather  cast  a 
horoscope  of  the  future,  and  cast  it  direfuUy:  "It  is  the 
judgment  of  very  learned  men,"  said  he,  "  that,  in  the  glori- 
ous times  promised  to  the  church  on  earth,  America  will  be 
Hell." 

The  foundation  of  Yale  College  at  Saybrook,  in  1 701,  was 
welcomed  by  the  Boston  conservatives,  as  a  ray  of  hope  in 
an  age  of  increasing  darkness.    Its  founders  were  heartily 

1  There  had  been  about  a  dozen  executions  before  this  time.  For  the  docu- 
ments, see  the  important  collection  of  Narratives  of  the  Witchcraft  Cases,  edited 
by  G.  L.  Burr,  New  York,  1914. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  33 

in  sympathy  with  the  Boston  group,  and  diligently  sought 
their  counsel,  which  was  readily  given.  Judge  Sewall  out- 
lined in  advance  a  programme  of  study  for  the  new  college, 
which  should  fortify  the  students  against  every  encroach- 
ment of  error. 

Let  them  read  the  Confession  of  Faith  set  forth  by  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  at  Westminster,  which  is  turned  into  good  Latin.  .  .  .  Let 
the  President  be  enjoined  to  read  and  expound  the  Scriptures  in  the 
Hall  morning  and  evening  de  die  in  diem.  Let  the  scholars  be  obliged 
to  obey  the  President.  .  .  .  Let  the  entire  course  of  exercises  be 
severely  and  strictly  exacted  without  dispensation  to  any  (Letter  to 
James  Pierpont,  Sept.  17,  1701). 

The  students  of  this  institution  at  least  were  to  walk  in 
the  ways  of  the  fathers,  and  not  to  hanker  after  anything 
new  or  loose ! 

Cotton  Mather  was  instrumental  in  securing  for  the  new 
college  a  substantial  benefit,  in  the  fortune  of  EHhu  Yale, 
and  thus  indirectly  deserves  the  credit  of  having  provided 
the  institution  with  a  name.  But  hardly  had  Yale  been  es- 
tablished in  its  permanent  home.  New  Haven,  when  starthng 
news  went  broadcast,  bringing  consternation  to  the  Congre- 
gational world,  and  above  all  to  the  conservative  party. 
The  Rector,  Timothy  Cutler,  and  the  tutor,  had  gone  over 
to  episcopacy !  This  was,  if  possible,  a  more  serious  schism 
than  that  of  Harvard's  president  to  the  Baptists  seventy 
years  before.  The  sensation  in  ecclesiastical  circles  can  be 
imagined.  President  Woolsey,  speaking  at  the  one  hundred 
and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  Yale,  said:  "  I  suppose  that 
greater  alarm  would  scarcely  be  awakened  now  if  the  theo- 
logical faculty  of  the  college  were  to  declare  for  the  Church 
of  Rome,  avow  their  behef  in  transubstantiation,  and  pray 
to  the  Virgin  Mary." 

As  if  to  add  insult  to  injury.  Cutler  came  to  Boston,  where, 
the  very  year  of  Increase  Mather's   death,   he  assumed 


34  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

charge  of  Christ  Church,  the  second  church  of  the  Episcopal 
order  to  be  estabUshed  in  the  town.  Presently,  in  company 
with  the  rector  of  King's  Chapel,  he  appHed  to  the  General 
Court  for  instatement  as  an  Overseer  of  Harvard  College! 
This  application  was  of  course  refused,  but  it  is  not  without 
interest  to  find  that  now  Benjamin  Colman  is  the  champion 
of  the  estabUshed  order,  for  it  is  he  who  replied  to  the 
argument  of  the  petitioners,  and  showed  that  only  Congrega- 
tional "  teaching  elders  "  were  ehgible  for  the  office  of  Over- 
seer of  the  college.  Later  on,  during  the  great  evangelistic 
movement,  we  find  Mr.  Cutler  issuing  violent  and  abusive 
attacks  upon  the  work  of  Whitefield  and  his  associates.  And 
it  must  be  said  that  much  of  his  energy  appears  to  have  been 
absorbed  in  protests  of  various  kinds.  He  scattered  them 
freely  along  the  pathway  of  his  Hfe,  and  through  them  per- 
haps some  good  was  ultimately  wrought.  Even  in  very 
ancient  times  the  prophetic  spirit  was  able  to  discern  that, 
amongst  more  easily  recognizable  blessings,  the  Lord  also 
sent  hornets  (Deut.  vii.  20). 

As  in  the  Bay  Colony,  so  too  in  Connecticut,  the  college 
and  the  churches  were  from  the  beginning  very  intimately 
related,  and  the  one  cannot  properly  be  studied  without  the 
other.  At  Yale  this  connection  was  perhaps  more  faithfully 
preserved  than  at  Harvard,  for  until  recent  times  every 
member  of  the  college  corporation,  as  well  as  every  president, 
was  an  ordained  minister.  How  close  this  association  was 
at  the  beginning,  appears  in  1708,  when  the  churches  were 
convened  in  synod,  by  order  of  the  General  Court,  and  met 
in  connection  with  the  college  commencement.  The  Say- 
brook  Synod  was  to  the  Congregationalism  of  that  section 
of  New  England  what  the  Cambridge  Synod  was  to  Massa- 
chusetts. It  formulated  and  defined  the  poHty  of  the 
churches,  setting  the  standard  to  which  all  should  conform. 
But   the   Saybrook  Platform   exhibits  marked   differences 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  35 

from  the  Cambridge  Platform,  and  to  understand  them  we 
must  glance  backward  at  the  course  of  events  in  England 
during  the  period  immediately  following  the  Act  of  Tolera- 
tion. 

At  that  time  English  Presbyterians  and  Congregation- 
alists  found  themselves  drawing  together  in  a  conscious 
fellowship,  and  it  so  happened  that  just  then  Increase 
Mather  appeared  among  them,  on  his  mission  in  behalf  of 
a  new  charter  for  the  Massachusetts  Colony.  Mather  lent 
all  his  considerable  influence  to  the  promotion  of  the  con- 
solidation. The  two  groups  of  churches  actually  did  adopt 
a  compact,  known  as  the  "  Heads  of  Agreement,"  under 
which  it  was  hoped  that  complete  union  might  be  attained. 
But  like  all  such  irenic  programmes  this  was  a  compromise, 
and,  on  the  part  of  the  Presbyterians,  almost  a  complete 
surrender.  It  was  accurately  described,  by  an  English  Con- 
gregationaHst  who  recognized  its  weakness,  as  "no  more 
than  a  verbal  composition,  or  a  number  of  articles  industri- 
ously and  designedly  framed  with  great  ambiguity,  that 
persons  retaining  their  different  sentiments  about  the  same 
things,  might  yet  seem  to  unite."  ^  One  is  not  surprised, 
therefore,  to  learn  that  this  nominal  agreement  lasted  only 
a  short  time  in  England,  passing  swiftly  into  neglect.  But 
in  America  it  had  an  important  influence,  for  the  alKance 
between  Presbyterianism  and  CongregationaHsm,  which  it 
depicted,  commended  itself  to  the  ministers  of  Connecticut, 
and  its  substance  was  incorporated  into  the  Saybrook  Plat- 
form. Here  then  is  the  source  of  that  presbyterial  tend- 
ency which  has  so  often  been  noticed  among  the  churches 
of  southwestern  New  England. 

Meanwhile  several  of  the  ministers  in  Massachusetts, 
desiring  to  stem  the  tide  of  change  and  to  restore  the  old 
strictness  and  sobriety,  met  together  and  prepared  a  plan 

^  Quoted  by  Walker,  Creeds  and  Platforms,  p.  446. 


36  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

for  the  systematic  organization  of  associations  of  ministers, 
consociations  of  churches,  and  standing  councils,  which, 
when  examined,  was  found  also  to  approximate  towards  the 
'  presbyterial  way.  It  was  formally  embodied  in  the  ''  Pro- 
posals of  1705,"  issued  by  a  committee  representing  at  least 
five  of  the  existing  ministerial  associations  of  Massachusetts.^ 
The  Mathers  urged  the  adoption  of  these  Proposals,  which 
led  Ezra  Stiles  to  charge  them  with  having  endeavored  "  to 
presbyterianize  the  New  England  churches,  by  resolving  all 
under  ecclesiastical  judicatories  "  {Diary,  I,  p.  37),  but  the 
plan  failed  to  meet  with  approval  and  was  dropped.  In 
Connecticut,  however,  the  Proposals  received  a  more  cordial 
welcome,  and  the  Saybrook  Platform  adopted  with  but  Httle 
change  their  principles  of  church  government  and  discipline. 

Against  all  these  presbyterianizing  measures  there  arose 
a  champion  of  ecclesiastical  democracy,  in  the  person  of 
the  Rev.  John  Wise,  of  Ipswich,  who  defended  the  liberties 
of  the  churches  with  all  the  weapons  of  learning,  logic,  and 
irony.^  So  vigorous  and  well  presented  were  his  arguments, 
that  his  books  were  re-issued,  as  poHtical  tracts,  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution;  for  the  same  course  of  reasoning  which 
would  convince  a  man  of  the  validity  of  a  democratic  church, 
might  also  convince  him  of  the  validity  of  a  democratic 
state. 

The  General  Court  of  Connecticut  was  well  disposed 
towards  the  churches,  and  so  was  Governor  Saltonstall,  who 
was  himself  a  minister;  they  approved  the  conclusions  of 
the  Saybrook  Synod,  and  proceeded  to  enact  the  Platform 
into  law.    Toleration  of  dissent  from  the  standing  order  was 

^  There  had  been  purely  voluntary  associations  of  ministers  in  New  England 
from  a  very  early  day,  but  they  assumed  no  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  They  seem 
to  have  met  less  frequently  after  the  Cambridge  Synod,  but  were  revived  towards 
the  end  of  the  century. 

^  See  his  books  entitled,  The  Churches'  Quarrel  Espoused,  1710,  and  Vindication 
of  the  Government  of  the  New  England  Churches,  17 17. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  37 

however  secured.  The  Saybrook  Platform  remained  in 
force  until  1784,  when,  by  a  revision  of  the  statutes,  it  was 
omitted,  and  thereby  practically  repealed.^ 

It  is  clearly  evident  that  Connecticut  Congregationalism 
was  different  in  type  from  that  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
churches  were  at  no  pains  to  conceal  it.  In  1799,  the  Hart- 
ford North  Association  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  its 
churches  were  "not  Congregational";  and  in  1805,  the 
General  Association,  with  reference  to  the  Saybrook  Plat- 
form, called  it  "  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  the  Presby- 
terian church  in  Connecticut."  Such  words  could  never 
have  been  used  to  describe  the  condition  of  things  in  Massa- 
chusetts where  the  Cambridge  Platform  guided  the  action 
of  the  churches.  But  it  is  hardly  surprising,  in  view  of  the 
course  of  events  in  Connecticut,  to  find  the  churches  there, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  entering  into 
fraternal  relations  with  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presby- 
terian church,  and  undertaking  a  common  task  in  the  ex- 
tension of  organized  religion  westward,  under  the  "  Plan  of 
Union,"  to  be  considered  later  in  our  study. 

^  In  1818,  the  adoption  of  a  new  constitution  by  the  state  placed  all  churches 
upon  an  equality  before  the  law. 


III.    RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY 

To  understand  an  age,  one  must  know  what  books  the  people 
read.  It  is  not  difficult  to  answer  that  question  for  the  New 
England  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  people  read  the 
Bible,  and  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  Baxter's  Call  to  the  Un- 
converted, and  Law's  Serious  Call  to  a  Devout  and  Holy 
Life;  and  their  children  studied  the  New  England  Primer. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  no  other  books  than  these  were 
accessible  to  our  ancestors,  or  that  nothing  else  was  ever 
read,  but  the  books  I  have  mentioned  were  among  the  classics 
of  Puritan  literature,  and  some  of  them  were  certain  to  be 
found  in  every  home.  Their  perusal  stimulated  introspection, 
and  cultivated  a  type  of  religious  life  which  easily  might, 
and  not  infrequently  did,  become  morbid.  And  at  the  best, 
while  it  no  doubt  strengthened  moral  purpose  and  deepened 
piety,  it  ignored  certain  fundamental  human  instincts,  and 
left  undeveloped  certain  valuable  capacities.  Its  one- 
sidedness  is  seen  in  the  "  memoirs  "  of  prominent  men  and 
women,  which  are  in  no  proper  sense  biographies,  but  for 
the  most  part  records  of  religious  experience  and  expressions 
of  pious  sentiment.  The  same  is  true  of  much  of  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  period,  so  far  as  that  has  survived.  Even 
within  the  nineteenth  century,  one  can  find  numerous  in- 
stances of  memoirs  which  lack  all  ordinary  biographical 
information,  and  letters  which  are  religious  essays  and 
nothing  more. 

There  was,  however,  a  more  ambitious  native  literature, 
dealing,  of  course,  with  religion,  and  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony  had  its  Milton  in  the  person  of  Michael  Wiggles- 
worth,  and  its  epic  in  The  Day  of  Doom.  The  literary  merit 
of  the  poem  was  not  remarkable,  but  it  was  widely  read,  and 
not  without  a  shudder.     It  related  how,  at  the  last  great 

38 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  39 

day,  non-elect  infants  would  argue  their  desperate  case  with 
the  Almighty,  and  argue  in  vain.  The  closing  scene  depicts 
the  unfortunate  infants,  with  heroic  resignation  and  unim- 
peachable orthodoxy,  acknowledging  the  justice  of  the 
sentence  of  condemnation  pronounced  upon  them: 

The  glorious  King  thus  answering, 

They  cease,  and  plead  no  longer; 
Their  consciences  must  needs  confess 

His  reasons  are  the  stronger. 

The  chief  prose  work  of  the  early  colonial  period  was  Cotton 
Mather's  Magnalia,  which  has  been  called  the  prose  epic  of 
New  England.  It  is  an  extraordinary  combination  of  history, 
theology,  and  controversy,  —  all  permeated  by  the  author's 
particular  prejudices  and  superstitions,  —  but  invaluable  to 
the  student  of  the  period. 

The  New  England  Primer  had  a  large  and  uninterrupted 
circulation  for  more  than  one  hundred  years,  and  it  was  the 
text-book  for  several  successive  generations  of  children.^ 
It  opened  with  the  alphabet,  as  all  well  ordered  primers 
should;  then  were  given  lists  of  short  and  easy  syllables; 
then  lists  of  words,  of  growing  difficulty.  In  its  general 
form  it  was  modelled  after  similar  books  pubhshed  in  Eng- 
land, but  it  contains  significant  changes.  The  Elizabethan 
primers  usually  had  the  cross  of  Malta  (H[<)  at  the  beginning 
of  the  first  row  of  letters  of  the  alphabet,  but  the  New  Eng- 
land Primer  omits  the  priestly  symbol.  It  will  have  none 
of  the  "  cris  cross  row  "  (Christ's  Cross  row)  of  its  prelatical 
predecessors,  but  will  be  avowedly  puritan.  The  distinctive 
feature  of  the  Primer  was  the  alphabetical  series  of  rhymed 
couplets,  beginning. 

In  Adam's  fall 

We  sinned  all 

*  It  was  first  printed  about  1690.  Paul  Leicester  Ford  estimates  that  it  had  an 
average  annual  sale  of  more  than  twenty  thousand  copies  for  at  least  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years.     See  his  monograph,  The  New  England  Primer  (New  York,  1899). 


40  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  ending  with  the  triplet, 

Zacchaeus  he 
Did  climb  a  tree 
His  Lord  to  see. 

With  each  was  a  decorative  illustration  of  the  incident  to 
which  the  lines  referred.  To  many  a  New  England  boy  was 
assigned  the  unwelcome,  but  not  very  difficult,  task  of 
committing  the  entire  series  to  memory,  —  as  a  punishment. 
What  was  just  said  about  Puritan  antipathy  to  the  symbol 
of  the  cross  finds  further  illustration  in  the  successive  re- 
visions of  the  Primer.    The  earhest  edition  had  for  the  letter 

J  this  couplet: 

Sweet  Jesus  he 
Died  on  the  tree 

and  there  was  an  accompanying  picture  of  the  cross.  But 
this  was  presently  omitted,  and  in  its  place  we  read, 

Job  feels  the  rod, 
Yet  blesses  God. 

It  was  not  the  doctrine  of  the  crucifixion  which  offended, 
but  the  pictorial  representation  of  it.  Good  evidence  of 
this  exists  in  an  edition  of  the  Primer  issued  shortly  after 
the  Great  Awakening,  in  which  practically  all  the  secular 
rhymes  of  the  older  editions  are  replaced  by  others  of  a  re- 
ligious nature.  Under  the  letter  C,  the  earlier  editions  had 
the  worldly-wise  hues. 

The  cat  doth  play, 
And  after  slay. 

The  new  edition  has  the  strongly  evangeHcal 

'  Christ  crucified 
For  sinners  died. 

But  now  there  is  no  picture  of  the  crucifix.    Behef  in  the 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  4 1 

atonement,  wrought  by  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  was 
general  in  puritan  New  England.  But  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
like  the  cross  itself  among  men  of  the  ancient  world,  was  a 
stumbling-block  and  foolishness. 

The  Primer  also  contained  the  Shorter  Catechism,  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  the  Ten  Commandments,  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  The  Poem  of  John  Rogers,  first  of  the  Marian 
martyrs,  and  his  picture,  as  he  was  burning  at  the  stake, 
surrounded  by  his  large  and  sorrowing  family,  will  perhaps 
be  remembered  by  some  who  read  these  pages.  New  Eng- 
land's special  contribution  to  the  Primer  was  John  Cotton's 
"  Spiritual  Milk  for  Babes,  drawn  out  of  the  Breasts  of  both 
Testaments,"  which  had  considerable  currency  as  a  cate- 
chism for  the  young,  although  it  never  was  so  widely  used 
as  the  Shorter  Catechism  of  the  Westminster  divines. 

On  such  food  as  this  was  the  youthful  mind  of  New  Eng- 
land nourished  for  generations.  It  made  life  serious,  but  it 
gave  it  religious  motive  and  direction,  which  the  more  lati- 
tudinarian  ages  have  often  lacked.  There  was,  however, 
beginning  in  the  eighteenth  century,  a  new  body  of  reading 
matter  coming  into  existence,  in  the  shape  of  newspapers. 
The  Boston  News  Letter  began  publication  in  1704,  and  in 
the  course  of  fifteen  years,  built  up  a  circulation  of  three 
hundred  copies.  The  Boston  Gazette  dates  from  1719,  and 
the  New  England  C  our  ant  from  only  two  years  later.^  Be- 
fore very  long  we  meet  with  the  New  England  Weekly  Journal, 
and  the  Boston  Evening  Post.  Here,  indeed,  were  the  humble 
beginnings  of  a  new  era,  the  era  of  the  newspaper,  —  that 
indispensable  modern  convenience,  which  has  done  so  much 
to  inform  men,  and  at  the  same  time  to  destroy  their  interest 
in  the  great  literatures  of  the  world. 

^  Justin  Winsor  describes  the  Courant  as  "  bold  and  saucy."  It  certainly  lacked 
respect  for  tradition,  and  even  ventured  to  print  some  of  the  hymns  of  Isaac  Watts, 
suggesting  that  they  be  substituted  for  the  Psalms  in  public  worship. 


42  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  evangelical  re- 
vival of  the  eighteenth  century,  commonly  known  as  the 
Great  Awakening,  and  we  must  now  turn  to  a  consideration 
of  the  leaders  of  that  movement,  particularly  Edwards 
and  Whitefield,  two  of  the  most  impressive  figures  in  the 
religious  history  of  America. 

In  the  year  of  the  new  Massachusetts  charter  there  was 
graduated  from  Harvard  College  Timothy  Edwards,  who 
became  pastor  of  the  church  in  Windsor  Farms,  Connecticut, 
and  remained  there  for  sixty-three  years.  He  married  a 
daughter  of  Solomon  Stoddard,  the  well-known  minister  at 
Northampton,  whose  pastorate  was  also  of  notable  length, 
covering  sixty  years.  From  this  union  was  born,  in  the  year 
1703,  a  son  who  was  destined  to  become  the  foremost  philos- 
opher and  theologian  of  America,  —  Jonathan  Edwards. 
John  Wesley,  the  evangelizer  of  England's  common  people, 
was  born  the  same  year.  The  foundations  of  Petrograd 
were  being  laid  under  Peter  the  Great.  The  Royal  Academy 
of  Berlin  was  only  three  years  old,  and  Leibnitz  was  its 
president.  Bayle's  Dictionnaire  Historique  et  Critique,  of 
which  the  second  edition  had  just  appeared,  was  profoundly 
stirring  the  European  world.  Voltaire  was  a  boy  of  ten.  At 
home,  Yale  College  had  just  been  founded,  to  become  the 
nursery  of  Edwards  and  many  of  his  followers. 

The  youthful  Edwards  exhibited  extraordinary  precocity. 
At  the  age  of  nine  he  wrote  a  serious  discussion  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  materialism.  At  thirteen,  he  read  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew.  At  seventeen,  he  was  graduated  from  college  with 
the  highest  honors.  Soon  called  to  a  tutorship  at  Yale,  when 
the  college  was  face  to  face  with  a  grave  crisis,  caused  by  the 
defection  of  its  rector  and  tutor  to  Episcopacy,  it  fell  to 
Edwards's  lot  to  recover  the  institution  from  this  staggering 
blow,  and  set  it  anew  upon  its  appointed  pathway.  He  suc- 
ceeded, but  at  the  cost  of  much  labor  and  peace  of  mind. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  43 

"  I  have  now,"  runs  his  Diary  (June  9,  1724),  "  abundant 
cause  to  be  convinced  of  the  troublesomeness  and  perpetual 
vexation  of  the  world." 

Three  years  passed,  and  Edwards  accepted  the  associate 
pastorate,  with  his  grandfather,  of  the  church  in  Northamp- 
ton, where  he  remained  for  twenty- three  years,  until  dismissed 
on  account  of  his  opposition  to  the  HaK-way  Covenant,  and 
because  his  rigorous  moral  standards  were  disliked  by  the 
young  people.  To  the  lasting  discredit  of  what  is  now, 
by  way  of  tardy  atonement,  the  "  Edwards  Church  "  of 
Northampton,  he,  the  foremost  thinker  of  New  England,  at 
the  very  height  of  his  powers,  was  cast  out,  to  shift  for  him- 
self and  his  family  as  best  he  might.  Half  a  dozen  years 
followed  of  frontier  life  among  the  Stockbridge  Indians, 
where  he  wrote  his  Treatise  on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  and 
he  was  then  called  to  become  president  of  the  infant  College 
of  New  Jersey.  He  removed  to  Princeton,  but  only  to  die 
within  two  months  from  the  effects  of  inoculation  for  the 
smallpox.-^ 

With  Edwards  begins  a  new  period  in  our  religious  history, 
a  period  characterized  on  the  one  hand  by  revivahsm  and 
on  the  other  by  the  appearance  of  theological  parties  and 
the  growth  of  denominationaHsm.  He  himself  was  the 
founder  of  one  of  the  most  influential  schools  of  theology 
produced  by  America,  known  as  the  "New  England  School," 
which  lasted  for  more  than  a  century.  And  it  was  in  no 
small  measure  a  reaction  against  Edwardeanism  that  pro- 
duced the  Hberal  movements  which  have  played  so  interest- 
ing and  significant  a  part  in  modern  New  England  thought. 

^  A  genealogical  study  of  Edwards's  numerous  descendants  reveals  very  interest- 
ing facts.  It  has  been  computed  that  there  are  among  them  presidents  of  eight 
colleges,  about  one  hundred  college  professors,  more  than  one  hundred  lawyers, 
sixty  physicians,  thirty  judges,  eighty  holders  of  important  public  office,  twenty-five 
officers  in  the  army  and  navy,  and  almost  numberless  clergymen  and  missionaries. 
See  Edith  A.  Winship's  article  on  "The  Human  Legacy  of  Jonathan  Edwards," 
in  the  World's  Work  for  October,  1903. 


44  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Most  persons  have  at  least  heard  of  Edwards's  sermons 
on  the  terrors  of  future  punishment,  but  few  are  familiar 
with  his  finer  and  more  characteristic  sermons  on  "  Man's 
Dependence,"  and  "Spiritual  Light."  His  "Treatise  on  the 
Will "  remains  his  most  famous  work,  but  the  essays  "  On 
the  Religious  Affections,"  "  On  Virtue,"  and  "  On  the  End 
of  God  in  Creation,"  are  quite  as  valuable  as  an  index  to 
his  thinking,  and  would  of  themselves  have  ensured  him  a 
permanent  place  in  the  history  of  religious  hterature.  He 
was  intensely  interested  in  the  subject  of  conversion,  and 
analyzed  the  soul's  experience  with  the  utmost  keenness. 
It  was  not  primarily  the  psychological  importance  of  the 
phenomena  which  attracted  him,  but  rather  the  fact  that 
here  he  witnessed  the  workings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the 
human  heart  and  will.  He  sought  to  trace  each  step  of  the 
process,  and  to  describe  it  accurately  for  the  benefit  of  others. 
The  revivals,  which  began  in  1735,  afforded  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  such  investigations,  and  one  may  read  of  a  typical 
case,  in  the  Life  of  the  Rev.  David  Brainerd.  The  reahty 
and  decisiveness  of  Brainerd's  conversion  are  thus  set  forth 
by  Edwards: 

The  dispositions  and  affections  which  were  then  given  him,  and 
thenceforward  maintained  in  him,  were  most  sensibly  and  certainly, 
perfectly  different  in  their  nature  from  all  that  ever  he  was  the  sub- 
ject of  before,  or  that  he  ever  had  any  conception  of .  .  .  .  It  is  further 
observable  that  his  religion  all  along  operated  in  such  a  manner  as 
tended  to  confirm  his  mind  in  the  doctrines  of  God's  absolute  sover- 
eignty, man's  universal  and  entire  dependence  on  God's  power  and 
grace,  etc.  .  .  .  Now  where  is  there  to  be  found  an  Arminian  con- 
version or  repentance,  consisting  in  so  great  and  admirable  a  change  ? 
(Edwards's  Works,  I,  pp.  664  f.    New  York,  1858). 

Yet  Edwards  was  far  removed  from  sympathy  with  the 
fanatical  type  of  revivahsm  practiced  by  some  less  cultivated 
preachers,  and  he  alludes  to  it  with  severity,  lamenting  that 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  45 

there  have  been  "  so  many  pretences  and  appearances  of 
what  is  called  experimental  vital  religion,"  which,  in  the 
end,  "  have  proved  to  be  nothing  but  vain,  pernicious 
enthusiasm  "  (Works,  I,  p.  662). 

The  Great  Awakening  was  immensely  stimulated  by  the 
preaching  of  a  young  English  clergyman,  George  Whitefield, 
who  made  seven  visits  to  America,  and  showed  himself  the 
greatest  popular  preacher  of  his  time,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
of  all  time.  His  audiences  overflowed  the  largest  churches, 
and  it  was  estimated  that,  in  the  open  air,  he  sometimes 
addressed  as  many  as  twenty  thousand  persons.  Like  his 
contemporary,  John  Wesley,  he  preached  assiduously,  aver- 
aging two  sermons  a  day  for  most  of  his  active  life.  In  all  it 
is  said  that  he  preached  about  eighteen  thousand  sermons. 
And  they  were  by  no  means  short.  The  day  before  his 
death  he  preached  one  hour  and  fifty-five  minutes.^  The 
effects  of  his  oratory  were  remarkable,  and  whole  commu- 
nities were  transformed  through  his  influence.  But  he  yielded 
to  the  temptations  which  beset  popular  revivahsts,  adopting 
a  tone  of  censoriousness  towards  churches  and  ministers,  and 
denouncing  the  colleges,  where,  he  said,  the  light  had  become 
darkness.  He  himself,  in  his  turn,  was  severely  criticized, 
not  only  by  individuals,  but  also  by  the  colleges  and  the 
newspapers.^  Even  the  gentle  Edwards  felt  constrained  on 
one  occasion  to  administer  to  him  a  reproof. 

The  general  description  of  Whitefield  and  his  work  given 
by  Benjamin  FrankHn,  who  knew  him  personally,  is  so 
candid  and  so  fair,  that  it  deserves  to  be  quoted  at  length: 

^  At  Exeter,  N.  H.    See  Stiles's  Diary,  Nov.  12,  1770. 

*  "  The  Testimony  of  the  President,  Professors,  Tutors,  and  Hebrew  Instructor, 
of  Harvard  College,  against  the  Rev.  George  Whitefield  and  his  Conduct,"  issued 
in  December,  1744,  and  the  "  Declaration  of  the  Rector  and  Tutors  of  Yale  College 
against  George  Whitefield,"  issued  in  February,  1745.  Timothy  Cutler,  then  rector 
of  Christ  Church,  Boston,  abused  Whitefield  roundly,  and  he  was  ridiculed  in  the 
columns  of  the  Boston  Evening  Post,  which  had  lately  come  into  existence. 


46  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

In  1739  arrived  among  us  from  Ireland  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whitefield,  who 
had  made  himself  remarkable  there  as  an  itinerant  preacher.  He  was 
at  first  permitted  to  preach  in  some  of  our  churches;  but  the  clergy, 
taking  a  dislike  to  him,  soon  refus'd  him  their  pulpits,  and  he  was 
oblig'd  to  preach  in  the  fields.  The  multitudes  of  all  sects  and  de- 
nominations that  attended  his  sermons  were  enormous,  and  it  was 
matter  of  speculation  to  me,  who  was  one  of  the  number,  to  observe 
the  extraordinary  influence  of  his  oratory  on  his  hearers,  and  how  much 
they  admir'd  and  respected  him,  notwithstanding  his  common  abuse 
of  them,  by  assuring  them  they  were  naturally  half-beasts  and  half- 
devils.  It  was  wonderful  to  see  the  change  soon  made  in  the  manners 
of  our  inhabitants.  From  being  thoughtless  or  indifferent  about 
religion,  it  seem'd  as  if  all  the  world  were  growing  religious.^ 

A  breathlessly  enthusiastic  account  of  the  field  preaching 
of  Mr.  Whitefield  in  Connecticut  is  found  in  an  old  diary, 
kept  by  an  illiterate  farmer  named  Nathan  Cole.  This  tells 
us  how  Cole  and  his  wife,  in  feverish  haste,  rode  twelve  miles 
on  horseback  to  hear  the  great  preacher,  and  it  thus  de- 
scribes the  impression  his  appearance  produced  upon  them : 

He  looked  almost  angellical  a  young  slim  slender  youth  before 
some  thousands  of  people  &  with  a  bold  undainted  countenance  .  .  . 
it  solumnized  my  mind  &  put  me  in  a  trembling  fear  before  he  began 
to  preach  for  he  looked  as  if  he  was  Cloathed  with  authority  from  ye 
great  god,  &  a  sweet  soUome  Solemnity  sat  upon  his  brow.  .  .  .  ^ 

There  were  naturally  many  who  defended  Whitefield 
against  all  aspersions,  and  heartily  endorsed  his  work. 
Benjamin  Colman  and  Thomas  Prince  were  instrumental 
in  securing  a  statement,  signed  by  ninety  ministers,  in  which 
they  bore  pubHc  testimony  to  the  value  of  the  revival  meet- 
ings, and  as  for  their  general  popularity,  that  was  obvious 
enough  to  all  beholders.  It  is  estimated  that  during  the 
twenty  years  from  1740  to  1760,  one  hundred  and  fifty  new 

*  Autobiography,  edited  by  William  Macdonald,  1905,  p.  125. 
"  Quoted  from  the  unpublished  diary,  by  Dr.  G.  L.  Walker,  Some  Aspects  of 
the  Religious  Life  of  New  England,  Boston,  1897,  p.  91. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  47 

churches  were  estabhshed  in  New  England.^  To  this  num- 
ber should  be  added  many  more  in  the  central  and  southern 
colonies,  —  for  Whitefield  travelled  widely  and  preached 
everywhere.  Gains  were  registered  by  all  the  churches, 
Baptist,  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  and  even  Episcopalian,  — 
as  well  as  by  the  Congregationalists.  But  it  should  be  added 
that  the  increase  in  membership  in  the  Episcopal  church 
was  due  in  part  to  the  reaction  against  the  revivals,  felt  by 
members  of  the  other  churches,  who  disliked  Whitefield's 
extravagances,  and  withdrew  from  the  churches  where  they 
were  encouraged.  A  fresh  interest  in  Christian  education 
led  to  the  foundation  of  Dartmouth  College,  as  an  outgrowth 
of  Moor's  Indian  Charity  School  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut, 
and  also  to  the  foundation  of  Princeton  College,  so  that 
both  these  institutions  may  be  regarded  as  indirect  fruits 
of  the  revival  movement. 

One  of  the  by-products  of  the  Great  Awakening  was  an 
outbreak  of  simon-pure  Congregationalism  in  eastern  Con- 
necticut, in  the  shape  of  a  series  of  local  separations  from 
the  dominant  ecclesiastical  system  of  the  Saybrook  Plat- 
form. The  persons  most  actively  engaged  in  it  were  ignorant 
and  humble  folk,  like  Nathan  Cole,  but  very  much  in  earnest, 
and  insistent  upon  their  right  to  conduct  their  religious  affairs 
after  their  own  fashion.  They  believed  in  evangehsm  of  the 
vigorous,  enthusiastic  type,  and  they  were  impatient  of  the 
conservatism  with  which  they  were  surrounded.  The  last 
synod  ever  called  by  the  colonial  authorities  of  Connecticut 
was  convened  to  consider  these  irregularities,  and  its  ad- 
verse action  was  followed  by  legislation  by  the  General 
Court,  making  separation  from  the  standing  order  illegal. 
As  a  consequence,  the  people  who  had  formed  conventicles, 
—  just  as  the  progenitors  of  New  England  had  done  across 

^  The  population  of  New  England  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
has  been  estimated  by  Justin  Winsor  at  four  hundred  thousand  persons. 


48  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  sea,  —  found  themselves  persecuted  for  their  faith.  So 
vigorous  was  the  action  against  them,  that  we  even  hear  of 
the  expulsion  of  two  students  from  Yale  College  in  1744  for 
the  offence  of  having  attended  a  separatist  meeting.  The 
movement,  however,  was  not  well  organized  or  ejQSciently 
led,  and  it  died  out  without  permanently  affecting  the  course 
of  ecclesiastical  history.  Yet  it  is  of  interest  to  the  student 
because  of  the  anomalous  situation  which  it  created,  in 
bringing  a  commonwealth  whose  origin  lay  in  Puritan 
separatism  into  the  position  of  a  persecutor  of  independent 
movements  within  its  own  body.^ 

Another  of  the  effects  of  the  Great  Awakening,  and  not 
the  least  important,  was  the  formation  of  theological  par- 
ties, and  the  sharpening  of  such  doctrinal  distinctions  as 
already  existed.  Thenceforward  polemical  preaching  flour- 
ished in  New  England,  and  theological  liberaHsm  entered 
upon  a  vigorous  and  successful  stage  of  its  career.  The 
Edwardean  system,  under  the  name  of  "  New  England 
Theology,"  or  Hopkinsianism,  was  transmitted,  through  a 
line  of  able  thinkers  and  writers,  almost  to  our  own  day. 
Joseph  Bellamy  and  Samuel  Hopkins,  with  Edwards  himself, 
constituted  the  great  triumvirate,  and  among  their  best 
known  successors  were  Nathanael  Emmons,  Jonathan 
Edwards,  Jr.,  and  the  elder  Timothy  D wight.  Some  of  the 
members  of  this  school,  like  President  Finney  and  Professor 
Nathaniel  W.  Taylor,  mark  a  departure  from  the  severities 
of  the  system  as  handed  down  to  them,  which  simply  means 
that  they  construed  more  liberally  than  their  associates  the 
Hopkinsian  principle  of  theological  "  improvements."  All 
these  divines  were  Calvinists,  but  they  maintained  that  their 
Calvinism  was  an  improvement  upon  Calvin's.  They  taught 
that  all  hoUness  consists  in  disinterested  benevolence,  and 

1  S.  L.  Blake,  The  Separatists,  or  Strict  Congregationalists  of  New  England. 
Boston,  1902. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  49 

that  all  sin  consists  in  selfishness.  The  supreme  test  of  a 
man's  faith  was  held  to  be  his  willingness  to  be  damned  for 
the  glory  of  God.  The  searching  nature  of  this  test,  when 
appHed  to  a  sensitive  conscience,  is  admirably  depicted  by 
Mrs.  Stowe,  in  The  Minister's  Wooing,  which  is  one  of  the 
best  pictures  of  the  rehgious  life  of  New  England  ever 
painted.^ 

Ezra  Stiles,  who,  although  an  evangeHcal,  was  not  him- 
self in  sympathy  with  the  new  divinity,  records  a  striking 
incident  which  fell  under  his  immediate  observation,  and 
seemed  to  him  to  supply  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
whole  Hopkinsian  movement.  It  was  the  case  of  a  Mr. 
Dawson,  an  independent  Baptist  minister  of  Newport,  in 
the  very  year  when  Samuel  Hopkins  was  called  to  the  pas- 
torate of  the  Congregational  church  of  that  town.  I  quote 
from  Stiles's  letter  describing  Dawson:^ 

He  preaches  that  it  is  sinful  for  the  imregenerate  to  pray  at  all; 
to  use  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  particular,  for  if  they  said  the  truth,  they 
would  say.  ...  "  Our  Father  which  art  in  Hell,"  our  father,  the 
Devil:  that  unregenerate  are  to  use  no  means  at  all,  there  are  no 
means  appointed  for  them;  .  .  .  they  are  more  likely,  or  at  least  as 
likely,  to  be  seized  by  grace,  not  using  than  using  means.  Particu- 
larly, as  to  attending  his  preaching,  he  asked  them  what  they  came 
there  for,  he  had  nothing  to  say  to  them,  only  to  tell  them  they  were 
heirs  of  damnation,  and  that  would  do  them  no  good  nor  hurt.  .  .  . 
None  but  saints  were  the  subjects  of  his  preaching  or  ordination;  and 
[he]  forbid  at  length  the  promiscuous  congregation  to  sing  with  them, 
or  pray  with  them,  —  and  only  a  dozen  or  so  now  sing.  ...  So  that 
he  does  the  thing  thoroughly,  —  he  makes  no  pauses  or  reservations. 
Now  this,  at  this  time,  is  a  very  wonderful  looking-glass  I    [Italics  mine.] 

In  this  "  looking-glass  "  Stiles  would  have  had  all  ad- 
herents of  the  "  new  divinity  "  behold  their  likeness,  if  only 

^  The  student  should  consult  F.  H.  Foster's  Genetic  History  of  the  New  England 
Theology,  Chicago,  1907. 

*  Letter  from  Ezra  Stiles  to  the  Rev.  Chauncey  Whittlesey,  March  6,  1770. 
Diary,  I,  pp.  40  f. 


50  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

they  would  carry  out  their  principles  to  logical  complete- 
ness. But  that  seldom  happens  in  theology,  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  its  materials  transcend  the  laws  of  logic.  Too 
many  factors  are  involved  to  permit  any  one  of  them  free 
operation  at  the  expense  of  the  rest. 

Over  the  issues  raised  by  the  Edwardeans  the  ranks  of 
orthodoxy  were  divided,  as  we  have  seen,  into  Old  Calvinists 
and  New  Divinity  men,  and  this  cleavage  runs  through 
nearly  a  century,  never  involving  organic  separation,  but 
furnishing  repeated  occasions  for  debate.  The  party  name, 
"  Old  Calvinists,"  did  not  come  into  use  at  once,  but  only 
by  degrees,  to  distinguish  them  from  the  other  group.  Dr. 
Leonard  Bacon  once  described  them  as  "  Calvinists  of  a 
mitigated  type."  They  did  not  deny  that  salvation  was 
wrought  by  divine  grace,  according  to  the  sovereign  will  of 
God,  but  they  did  encourage  the  use  of  "  means,"  such  as 
prayer,  church  attendance,  Bible  reading,  pious  meditation, 
and  righteous  hving,  —  which  the  thorough-going  Hopkin- 
sian  repudiated,  as  in  no  possible  sense  efficacious  for  salva- 
tion. Through  such  "  means,"  the  Old  Calvinists  believed 
that  man  might  place  himseh  in  the  way  of  receiving  the 
grace  of  regeneration,  although  he  could  not  earn  it.  Their 
position  marks  a  slight  approach  to  the  Arminianism  which 
Edwards  so  severely  reprobated.  The  foundation  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  in  1807,  may  be  said  to  mark  the  rec- 
onciliation of  the  two  wings  of  orthodox  Congregationalism. 

Over  against  both  these  orthodox  groups  stands  the  "  new 
Arminianism,"  against  which  Edwards  contended  through- 
out all  his  later  life.  Enemies  of  Calvinism  alleged  that  it 
was  antinomian  in  its  tendency,  that  it  failed  to  offer  any 
sufficient  ethical  motive,  that  it  placed  stumbhng-blocks  in 
the  way  of  men,  and  that  their  own  view  of  rehgion,  which 
laid  greater  emphasis  upon  moral  responsibility,  must  al- 
ways present  the  stronger  appeal.     It  was  a  revival  of  the 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  5 1 

theological  issues  which  had  been  fought  over  in  Holland  in 
the  days  of  Arminius,  and  in  the  ancient  church  during  the 
Pelagian  controversy.  Popularly  the  issue  might  be  stated 
thus:  Calvinism  holds  that  God  saves  men;  Arminianism 
holds  that  men  help  to  save  themselves.  The  more  radical 
view,  that  men  save  themselves,  which  of  course  would  empty 
the  term  "  salvation  "  of  all  Christian  content,  was  not 
advocated  by  anyone  in  the  early  days  of  New  England  liber- 
alism. The  most  vigorous  protests  were  directed  against 
those  aspects  of  Calvinism  which,  as  the  hberals  believed, 
were  degrading  to  human  nature  and  made  an  artificial 
distinction  between  the  morahty  of  the  regenerate  and  that 
of  the  unregenerate.  "  The  best  actions  of  the  unregenerate," 
said  Experience  May  hew,  one  of  the  earhest  of  the  liberals, 
"  are  not  properly  called  sins."  ^ 

Jonathan  May  hew,  son  of  Experience,  preached  that  "  re- 
generation is  conditioned  on  the  earnest  efforts  of  good  men 
to  obtain  it,"  and  this  position  may  be  said  to  have  held  the 
field  among  all  advocates  of  an  advanced  theology.  Jona- 
than Mayhew  went  further  than  most  of  his  contemporaries, 
even  among  the  hberals,  in  reviving  Arian  views  of  Christ, 
and  setting  aside  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  He 
thus  anticipated  the  development  of  Unitarianism  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  More  moderate  was  the  position  of 
Charles  Chauncy,  pastor  for  many  years  of  the  First  Church 
of  Boston.  His  sympathies  were  in  line  with  the  doctrinal 
relaxation,  but  he  was  a  conservative-hberal,  and  his 
influence  was  large  and  beneficent  in  an  age  of  increasing 
theological  difficulty.  Towards  Mayhew,  Chauncy  stood 
in  somewhat  the  same  attitude  that  Channing  afterward 
occupied  towards  Theodore  Parker. 

As  we  reach  the  period  of  the  American  Revolution,  it 
may  fairly  be  said  that,  in  New  England,  the  Arian  views  of 

^  See  his  Grace  Defended,  1744. 


52  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Christ  were  no  longer  a  novelty,  that  the  orthodox  view  of 
original  sin  was  widely  contested,  and  that  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  punishment  was  much  in  doubt,  if  not  openly  re- 
jected by  many.  Conditions  were  becoming  favorable  for 
the  formation  of  the  UniversaHst  and  Unitarian  denomi- 
nations, —  the  two  groups  of  organized  liberals  of  America. 

There  was,  however,  another  religious  movement,  very 
different  in  origin  and  nature  from  those  we  have  noticed, 
which  operated  powerfully  to  modify  the  strictness  of  Ameri- 
can theology,  and  that  was  Methodism.  John  and  Charles 
Wesley,  in  the  course  of  their  remarkable  evangelistic  work 
in  England,  vehemently  opposed  certain  tenets  of  Calvinism, 
and  most  emphatically  declared  that  men  are  responsible  to 
God  for  their  conduct,  and  have  no  excuse  for  idly  waiting 
for  the  Holy  Spirit  to  convert  them.  At  the  same  time,  they 
heartily  beheved  that  conversion  was  a  supernatural  change. 
This  type  of  Arminianism  was  presented  in  the  form  of 
earnest  religious  appeal  by  preachers  in  the  field,  not  by  the- 
ologians in  the  study,  and  it  laid  hold  on  the  popular  imagi- 
nation with  singular  power,  winning  thousands  of  converts. 

The  first  Methodist  preacher  to  visit  Boston  was  Jesse 
Lee,  who  in  1789  conducted  open-air  meetings  on  the  Com- 
mon, with  a  large  attendance  but  little  apparent  result. 
"  The  Word  took  but  little  hold  on  the  mind  of  the  hearers," 
—  was  Lee's  mournful  verdict  upon  his  visit.  In  fact, 
Methodism  did  not  make  much  progress  in  New  England 
until  after  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  yet  its 
theological  influence  was  doubtless  at  work  there,  affecting 
even  those  who  were  outside  its  pale.  In  Methodism  one 
could  find  visible  evidence  of  the  fact  that  evangelical  re- 
ligion Hved,  and  Hved  potently,  apart  from  some  of  the  most 
cherished  theological  beliefs  of  puritanism.  That  may  fairly 
be  said  to  have  been  a  discovery  for  New  England.  And  by 
it  the  whole  Christian  world  was  enriched. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  53 

The  period  of  the  American  Revolution  was  a  time  of 
difSculty  for  all  the  churches,  but  particularly  for  those, 
like  the  Episcopal  and  Methodist,  which  had  close  connec- 
tions with  the  mother  country,  and  were,  through  the  Angli- 
can establishment,  in  some  sense  under  its  jurisdiction. 
When,  in  1769,  Ezra  Stiles  includes  among  the  "  trials  and 
difficulties  "  which  are  troubling  his  mind,  "  concern  for  the 
Congregational  churches,  and  prevalence  of  Episcopacy  and 
wickedness,"  we  should  be  far  astray  if  we  regarded  the 
statement  as  a  piece  of  sectarian  bitterness,  and  even  more 
so,  if  we  thought  him  endeavoring  to  be  humorous.  The 
fact  is  that  the  ambitious  schemes  of  the  Episcopal  church 
in  New  England  were  hardly  less  a  cause  of  the  revolt  of  the 
colonies  than  unjust  taxation,  or  any  of  the  other  oppres- 
sive acts  against  which  the  colonists  complained.  John 
Adams,  writing  in  181 5,  of  the  views  and  suspicions  of  New 
Englanders  fifty  years  before  his  time,  remarked  that  "  if 
ParHament  can  erect  dioceses,  and  appoint  bishops,  they 
may  introduce  the  whole  hierarchy,  establish  tithes,  forbid 
marriages  and  funerals,  estabhsh  religion,  and  forbid  dis- 
senters." In  other  words,  the  colonists  feared  that,  through 
the  church,  the  EngHsh  state  could  greatly  strengthen  its 
hold  upon  America.  The  immediate  fear  was  that  bishops 
might  be  introduced  into  New  England,  but  the  war  brought 
all  such  apprehensions  to  an  end. 

The  other  churches  were  less  seriously  affected  by  the 
Revolution.  Their  forms  of  organization  enabled  them  to 
continue  their  institutional  life,  with  no  more  interrup- 
tion than  would  be  inevitable  under  the  circumstances, 
and  they  readily  adapted  themselves  to  the  changed  poHtical 
conditions  brought  about  by  the  union  of  the  colonies  into 
the  United  States  of  America.  During  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury it  had  been  generally,  although  not  universally,  be- 
lieved that  the  civil  government  might  and  should  lend  its 


54  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

support  to  organized  religion.  But  when  the  federal  con- 
stitution was  adopted,  and  again  in  the  series  of  new  state 
constitutions  which  followed,  the  principle  of  the  separation 
of  church  and  state  was  recognized  as  the  best  possible  for 
the  new  republic.  This  change  of  opinion  was  due  to  several 
causes,  among  them  being  the  multiplicity  of  rival  sects, 
which  made  it  impracticable  to  extend  public  favors  to  any 
of  them;  the  positive  objections  to  any  connection  between 
government  and  religion,  felt  by  many;  and  the  rise  of  the 
theory  of  the  secular  state,  through  the  influence  of  Jefferson 
and  his  sympathizers,  who  in  their  turn  had  been  influenced 
by  the  French  political  philosophy  of  the  period.  It  became 
a  settled  principle  of  the  American  people  that  church  and 
state  should  be  kept  apart  for  the  good  of  both.  Every 
attempt  to  abandon  this  principle  has  met  with  open  and 
so  far  effectual  opposition.  Yet  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the 
change  was  not  effected  at  once  in  all  parts  of  New  England. 
In  the  towns  especially,  which  retained  most  of  their  old 
autonomy,  the  pubhc  support  of  the  churches  did  not  cease 
in  Connecticut  until  1818,  and  in  Massachusetts  not  until 

1833. 

The  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  witnessed  the 
consoHdation  of  the  religious  forces  of  the  country,  the 
creation  of  new  ecclesiastical  machinery  where  it  was  needed,^ 
and  a  fair  start  of  the  various  denominations  under  the  com- 
petitive system  which  the  divorce  of  church  and  state 
rendered  inevitable.  The  equalizing  of  ecclesiastical  oppor- 
tunity, and  the  mutual  recognition  of  one  another's  rights, 
was  still  a  novelty,  and  it  long  continued  to  impress  foreign 
observers,  as  it  had  impressed  one  in  the  town  of  Philadel- 
phia, before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution:    "  Papists, 

*  The  Methodists,  for  instance,  received  a  "  Superintendent  "  from  John  Wesley, 
and  the  Episcopalians  secured  ordination  for  their  bishops  at  the  hands  of  the  Non- 
jurors of  Scotland  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  thus  uniting  the  long  sepa- 
rated English  lines. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  55 

Episcopalians,  Moravians,  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Method- 
ists, and  Quakers  passing  each  other  peacefully  and  in  good 
temper  on  the  Sabbath,  after  having  broken  up  their  re- 
spective assemblies."  ^  The  spectacle  astonished  this  Euro- 
pean visitor,  for  such  concord  was  unknown  across  the  sea. 
It  has  become  so  familiar  to  us  that  we  have  lost  all  sense 
of  its  significance  and  of  its  intrinsic  worth. 

The  changes  which  had  come  over  the  rehgious  aspect  of 
New  England  during  one  hundred  years  may  be  exhibited 
by  a  statistical  summary.  About  the  year  1 700  New  England 
as  a  whole  contained  one  hundred  and  ten  Congregational 
churches  and  one  Episcopalian  church.  About  1800,  there 
were  in  Massachusetts  alone  three  hundred  and  forty-four 
Congregational  churches,  besides  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
of  other  denominations.  Among  the  latter  were  ninety- 
three  Baptist,  twenty-nine  Methodist,  fourteen  Episcopahan, 
eight  Quaker,  four  Universalist,  and  two  Presbyterian 
churches.^  The  first  Roman  CathoKc  church  in  New  Eng- 
land was  built  in  Boston  in  the  year  1800.^ 

Our  statistical  summary  suggests  what  was  the  fact,  that 
thus  far,  Presbyterianism  had  made  little  headway  in  New 
England.  That  Httle  was  due  for  the  most  part  to  the 
coming  of  a  Scotch-Irish  company  to  Londonderry,  New 
Hampshire,  in  1720.  Here  was  organized  the  first  genuine 
Presbyterian  church  of  New  England,  and  here  that  polity 
has  remained  in  vigorous  Hfe  through  all  the  intervening 
years. 

^  See  Diman,  Orations  and  Essays,  p.  216. 

*  J.  S.  Clark,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Congregational  Churches  in  Massachu- 
setts, Boston,  1858. 

'  As  Dr.  O'Gorman  puts  it,  "  In  all  New  England  there  was  no  building  worthy 
the  name  of  church  until  Dr.  Matignon,  in  1800,  began  the  erection  of  one  on 
Franklin  Street  in  Boston."  (History  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United 
States,  p.  282.)  O'Gorman  gives  the  Roman  Catholic  population  of  Boston  in 
1798  as  two  hundred  and  ten  persons. 


IV.  MODERN  CONGREGATIONALISM 

The  spirit  of  individualism  was  always  strong  in  New  Eng- 
land. It  is  inherent  in  all  forms  of  protestantism,  but  showed 
itself  especially  in  connection  with  the  Puritan  movement, 
both  in  England  and  in  America.  And  as  the  eighteenth 
century  drew  near  its  close,  there  were  heard,  with  increas- 
ing clearness,  voices  of  protest  against  the  traditional  Cal- 
vinistic  teaching.  They  were  demanding  release  from  the 
intolerable  burden  of  belief  in  inherited  guilt,  under  which 
the  souls  of  men  were  staggering,  and  the  recognition  of  a 
moral  order  in  which  the  son  should  no  longer  bear  the  in- 
iquity of  the  father,  but  everyone  should  be  judged  according 
to  his  own  ways.  They  demanded  a  simplification  of  the 
Christian  message,  and  their  summons  marks  the  transition 
from  what  has  been  called  the  metaphysical  to  the  ethical 
period  in  our  religious  history. 

We  have  seen  that  many  factors  entered  into  this  move- 
ment of  emancipation,  but  among  them  we  must  not  over- 
look the  beginnings  of  the  historical  study  of  the  Bible,  under 
the  leadership  of  Protestant  scholars  in  France  and  Germany, 
which  necessitated  a  reconstruction  of  current  ideas  respect- 
ing the  authority  of  Scripture,  and  a  changed  conception  of 
the  development  of  Christianity.  Nor  may  we  overlook 
the  growth  of  modern  democracy,  with  its  social  readjust- 
ments and  their  bearing  on  the  religious  ideas  of  men.  Mr. 
Lecky  would  attribute  almost  all  the  transformations  of 
religious  belief  to  this  cause.  "  If,"  he  writes,  "  in  the  sphere 
of  rehgion,  the  rationalistic  doctrine  of  personal  merit  and 
demerit  should  ever  completely  supersede  the  theological 
doctrine  of  hereditary  merit  and  demerit,  the  change  will 
mainly  be  effected  by  the  triumph  of  democratic  principles 
in  the  sphere  of  politics."  ^    But  into  the  discussion  of  this 

^  Quoted  by  Professor  Diman,  Orations  and  Essays,  p.  233. 
s6 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  57 

attractive  theme  we  cannot  enter  here.  We  must  rather 
consider  the  Hberalizing  forces  which  proceeded  from  within 
CongregationaHsm  itself,  and  which  exhibited  the  historical 
working  out  of  certain  distinctive  traits  of  the  New  England 
character. 

Unitarianism,  broadly  speaking,  stands  for  an  abrupt 
emancipation  from  scholastic  orthodoxy.  In  its  organized 
form,  it  presents  one  aspect  of  an  intellectual  and  theologi- 
cal development,  very  much  broader  than  itself,  which  is 
clearly  traceable  in  all  the  leading  protestant  churches  of 
Europe  and  America,  and  from  which  all  have  reaped  sub- 
stantial benefits.  Just  as  in  the  ancient  church  the  Gnostic 
movement  may  be,  and  has  been,  described  as  the  "  acute 
heUenization  of  Christianity,"  —  so  in  modern  protestant- 
ism the  Unitarian  movement  might  be  described  as  the 
acute  liberalization  of  Christianity.  And  just  as,  in  the 
former  case,  it  is  clear  that  Gnosticism  was  not  the  cause, 
but  rather  one  immediate  effect,  and  that  the  most  conspic- 
uous, of  deep,  underlying  causes,  working  towards  the  for- 
mulation of  the  comprehensive  ancient  catholic  system,  — 
so,  in  the  latter  case,  it  is  equally  clear  that  Unitarianism 
was  not  the  cause,  but  rather  one  immediate  effect,  and 
again  the  most  conspicuous,  of  deep  underlying  causes, 
working  towards  the  formulation  of  a  simpler,  more  com- 
prehensive, more  ethical,  and  not  less  Christian,  programme 
for  the  churches  of  the  modern  world.  Regarding  the 
Unitarian  movement  from  this  point  of  view,  one  may 
reasonably  hope  to  avoid  envelopment  in  the  dust  and  smoke 
of  theological  battle,  and  to  measure  with  some  degree  of 
justice  the  value  of  its  service  to  the  cause  of  religious 
progress. 

It  so  happens  that,  on  the  ecclesiastical  side,  the  first 
steps  in  the  creation  of  an  organized  body  of  liberals  were 
taken  among  the  constituents  of  this  very  church  where  we 


58  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

are  now  gathered.  King's  Chapel  lost  most  of  its  original 
members  in  consequence  of  the  Revolution,  for  they  were 
Tories.  Hardly  was  the  war  over,  and  the  federal  govern- 
ment securely  established,  when  the  congregation  worship- 
ping here  elected  and  installed  a  liberal  minister  in  the  person 
of  James  Freeman,  and  introduced  drastic  modifications  of 
the  liturgy,  expunging  most  of  the  trinitarian  phraseology. 
This  first  Unitarian  church  in  America  may  be  dated  from 
1785,  the  year  when  the  altered  book  of  worship  was  oflS.- 
cially  adopted.^  The  formal  induction  of  Mr.  Freeman  into 
ofi&ce,  as  "  Rector,  Minister,  Priest,  Pastor,  teaching  Elder, 
and  public  Teacher "  of  the  religious  society  of  King's 
Chapel,  did  not  take  place  until  two  years  later,  in  November, 
1787.  The  ordination  ceremony  was  performed  by  the  senior 
warden,  setting  a  precedent  which  has  ever  since  been  fol- 
lowed.^ Under  the  old  regime,  when  the  Chapel  was  still 
subject  to  Anglican  control,  it  held  the  right  of  presentation 
and  chose  its  own  rectors,  and  this  right  was  recognized  by 
the  Bishop  of  London.  But  the  induction  of  the  incumbent 
into  office  by  the  congregation,  through  its  local  officers, 
acquired  a  new  significance  after  the  separation  of  the  colo- 
nies from  the  mother  country  and  the  mother  church.  The 
essentially  Congregational  character  of  these  proceedings 
has  often  been  pointed  out,  and  it  has  especial  interest  for 
orthodox  Congregationalists  at  the  present  time,  when 
modifications  of  polity,  looking  in  the  opposite  direction, 
are  in  favor  with  many  leaders  of  the  denomination. 

This  act  of  independent  ordination  was  much  discussed 
and  bitterly  criticized,  and  it  was  repudiated  by  the  other 
Episcopal  churches  of  New  England.  But  defenders  were 
not  lacking  on  the  Congregational  side,  especially  among  the 

^  The  first  revision  consisted  chiefly  of  changes  suggested  by  the  English  liberal, 
Dr.  Samuel  Clarke.    There  were  further  revisions  in  181 1,  1828,  and  even  later. 

'  Application  for  Freeman's  ordination  had  been  made  to  the  recently  conse- 
crated American  bishop  Provoost,  of  New  York,  but  without  success. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  59 

advanced  liberals.  Dr.  Belknap,  pastor  of  the  Federal 
Street  church,  gloried  that  it  had  been  performed  "  without 
any  affected  communication  of  sacerdotal  effluviae."  His 
exultant  and  perf ervid  rhetoric  is  worth  quoting : 

Then  was  cut  the  aspiring  comb  of  prelatic  pride,  —  then  was 
undermined  the  pompous  f abrick  of  hierarchical  usurpation ;  —  then 
was  pricked  the  puffed  bladder  of  uninterrupted  succession;  whUe 
the  eye  of  liberty  sparkled  with  joy,  and  the  modest  face  of  primitive, 
simple,  unadulterated  Christianity  brightened  with  the  conscious 
snule  of  a  decent,  manly,  substantial  triumph.^ 

The  Pilgrim  church  in  Plymouth,  and  a  large  number  of 
the  churches  of  eastern  Massachusetts,  one  after  another 
adopted  Unitarianism  as  their  faith,  and  the  divisions  which 
ensued  were  marked  by  a  bitterness  of  feeling  which  lasted 
through  the  century.  Only  one  of  the  colonial  churches  of 
Boston  maintained  its  orthodoxy,  the  Old  South.  Within 
a  radius  of  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles  from  the  State  House, 
a  majority  of  the  "  first  parishes  "  swung  into  line  with  the 
new  movement,  and  Harvard  College  allowed  its  sympathy 
and  cooperation  to  be  seen  in  the  election  of  a  liberal, 
Henry  Ware,  to  the  HoUis  Professorship  of  Divinity.  But 
Unitarianism  was  narrowly  localized,  and  for  a  long  time 
met  with  little  favor  beyond  the  limits  mentioned. 

In  opposition  to  the  rising  tide  of  liberalism,  we  find  the 
Hopkinsians  and  Old  Calvinists  joining  forces  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  with  generous 
provision  for  the  training  of  orthodox  ministers.  On  its 
faculty  were  soon  to  be  found  some  of  the  ablest  defenders 
of  the  older  faith.  Party  publications  began  to  appear,  and 
learned  disputations  were  put  forth  by  champions  on  both 
sides  of  the  great  controversy.  In  the  columns  of  the 
Monthly  Anthology  and  the  Christian  Disciple  one  might 

^  From  an  article  in  The  Centinel,  quoted  by  Greenwood,  History  of  Kong's 
Chapel,  p.  196. 


6o  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

read  what  the  liberals  believed  and  desired,  while  in  the 
Panoplist  and  the  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims  were  published  the 
defences  of  the  orthodox.  Professor  Leonard  Woods  of 
Andover  published  a  series  of  Letters  to  Unitarians,  and 
Professor  Ware  of  Harvard,  a  similar  series  of  Letters  to 
Trinitarians  and  Calvinists.  The  Convention  Sermon  gave 
opportunity  for  the  pubhc  discussion  of  both  sides  of  the 
questions  at  issue.  Channing's  sermon  at  the  installation 
of  Jared  Sparks  in  Baltimore  (1819)  fired  a  liberal  broad- 
side, to  which  Professor  Moses  Stuart,  —  the  ablest  of  all 
the  disputants,  —  issued  a  reply.  This  in  turn  evoked  a 
counter-reply  from  Professor  Andrews  Norton.  And  so  the 
battle  raged.  A  large  part  of  the  energies  of  Congregational- 
ism in  eastern  Massachusetts  for  an  entire  generation  were 
absorbed  by  this  acute  and  bitter  theological  controversy. 

The  organization  of  the  American  Unitarian  Association 
in  1825  gave  denominational  existence  to  what  before  had 
been  simply  the  liberal  party  of  Congregationalism.  The 
chief  point  of  attack  upon  orthodoxy  was  not  in  the  field  of 
theology  proper,  as  the  name  "  Unitarian  "  would  seem  to 
imply,  but  in  that  of  anthropology.  It  was  the  Calvinistic 
view  of  human  nature  which  provoked  Channing's  bitter 
arraignment  of  traditional  dogmas.  Only  later  was  atten- 
tion shifted  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  And  the  best 
service  which  the  liberals  rendered  to  religious  progress  was 
in  helping  to  free  the  minds  of  men  from  their  burden  of 
belief  in  inherited  guilt. 

Emerson's  "  Divinity  School  Address  "  (1838),  and  Theo- 
dore Parker's  sermon  on  "  The  Transient  and  Permanent 
in  Christianity"  (1841),  shortly  followed  by  the  death  of 
Dr.  Charming,  who  had  been  the  acknowledged  leader  of 
the  older  liberals,  introduced  a  new  chapter  in  the  develop- 
ment of  American  Unitarianism,  more  radical  than  the  first 
and  more  obviously  a  departure  from  historical  Christianity. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  6l 

From  this  time  onward  there  may  be  said  to  have  been  a 
conservative  and  a  Uberal  party  among  the  Unitarians,  as  in 
most  other  protestant  churches  of  modern  times. 

Where  churches  were  divided  in  opinion  and  a  spht  was 
threatened,  as  was  often  the  case,  a  momentous  question 
arose,  viz.,  which  fraction  constitutes  the  real  church,  and 
which  the  schismatic  body.  This  question  was  hotly  con- 
tested, for  upon  its  decision  depended  the  name,  the  records, 
and  the  property  of  what  might  be  an  ancient  and  wealthy 
church.  The  issue  was  not  so  simple  as  it  might  appear,  for, 
under  the  laws  of  the  commonwealth,  two  distinct  organi- 
zations were  involved,  the  church  and  the  parish.  Where 
a  clear  majority  of  the  church  members  remained  orthodox, 
as  in  the  church  at  Sandwich  (99  out  of  113),  they  natu- 
rally supposed  that  the  rights  and  property  would  remain 
theirs.  But  the  parish.  Unitarian  by  a  majority  of  two  or 
three,^  contended  that  in  it  resided  all  the  legal  rights,  and 
the  case  being  taken  to  the  courts,  a  decision  was  given  in 
favor  of  the  parish.  A  similar  decision  was  handed  down 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  in  the  Dedham 
case,  which  formed  a  precedent  for  all  subsequent  action. 
It  ran  as  follows : 

When  the  majority  of  a  Congregational  church  shall  separate  from 
the  majority  of  the  parish,  the  members  who  remain,  although  a 
minority,  constitute  the  church  in  such  parish,  and  retain  the  rights 
and  property  belonging  thereto. 

The  action  of  the  courts  affected  eighty-one  churches, 
and  it  has  been  computed  by  Dr.  Dexter  that  under  it  three 
thousand  nine  hundred  church  members  surrendered  church 
property  and  records  to  one  thousand  two  hundred  and 
eighty-two,  —  the  ratio  being  about  three  to  one.^   The  many 

^  The  vote  was  taken  on  a  motion  to  dismiss  the  (orthodox)  minister,  Jonathan 
Burr. 

*  H.  M.  Dexter,  The  Congregationalism  of  the  Last  Three  Hundred  Years, 
p.  619. 


62  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

orthodox  majorities  in  the  churches  of  eastern  New  England 
were  not  only  astonished  at  the  decision  of  the  court,  but 
profoundly  indignant.  They  were  astonished,  because  they 
saw  that,  according  to  the  court,  a  church  in  and  of  itself 
had  no  legal  existence  whatever.  Thus,  Chief  Justice  Parker 
declared  that  "  a  church  cannot  subsist  without  some  re- 
ligious community  to  which  it  is  attached."  And  again, 
"  As  to  all  civil  purposes,  the  secession  of  a  whole  church 
from  the  parish  would  be  an  extinction  of  the  church."  And 
the  orthodox  majorities  were  indignant,  because  property 
and  rights  were  seen  passing  into  the  legal  possession  of 
minorities,  a  transaction  which  seemed  to  them  to  violate 
every  inherited  principle  of  fair  play.  They  beheved  that 
the  action  taken  under  the  court's  ruling  was  little  short  of 
"  legalized  plunder."  And  as  a  natural  consequence,  we 
find  in  many  places  two  rival  bodies,  each  claiming  to  be  the 
"  First  Church,"  although  legally  only  one  of  them,  —  and 
that  usually  the  liberal,  —  was  entitled  to  that  name. 

In  point  of  law,  which  is  after  all  what  the  courts  had  to 
pass  upon,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  other  decision  was 
possible  than  the  one  actually  rendered.  But  in  point  of 
equity,  the  case  is  different.  And  one  of  the  cheering  signs 
of  recent  years  has  been  to  find  the  two  branches  of  some  of 
the  ancient  churches  entering  into  fraternal  agreements, 
which  frankly  recognize  the  justice  of  their  mutual  claims. 
An  instance  in  point  is  that  of  the  two  churches  in  Cam- 
bridge, which  in  1899,  through  friendly  negotiations,  agreed 
thenceforward  to  be  known  respectively  as  "  The  First 
Church,  Unitarian,"  and  "  The  First  Church,  Congrega- 
tional," —  a  happy  solution  of  a  long  standing  difference. 

One  immediate  consequence  of  the  doctrinal  controversy 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  founda- 
tion of  theological  schools,  to  take  the  place  of  the  inade- 
quate provision  for  ministerial  education  furnished  by  the 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  63 

colleges  and  by  private  training  in  the  homes  of  ministers. 
We  have  already  noticed  the  establishment  of  Andover 
Seminary  in  1807.  This  was  the  chief  centre  of  Congrega- 
tional education  for  many  years,  and  its  plan  of  organization 
and  curriculum  furnished  the  model  for  all  the  schools  which 
came  after  it.  A  second  Congregational  seminary  was  es- 
tablished at  Bangor,  Maine,  in  1816.  A  few  years  later  we 
find  a  differentiation  taking  place  at  the  colleges,  and  instead 
of  a  single  professorship  of  divinity,  —  which  had  long  been 
the  rule  both  at  Harvard  and  at  Yale,^  —  a  department  of 
theology  was  estabhshed,  on  the  general  plan  of  the  inde- 
pendent schools  already  mentioned.  Thus  the  Harvard 
Divinity  School  comes  into  separate  existence,  followed  soon 
by  Yale;  the  former  Unitarian,  and  the  latter  Trinitarian.  As 
the  Yale  School  soon  exhibited  a  theological  tendency  too 
hberal  for  some  of  its  natural  constituents,  another  insti- 
tution was  started  at  East  Windsor  Hill.  This  was  dominated 
by  the  conservatives,  and  later  was  removed  to  Hartford, 
under  the  new  name  of  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 

The  detachment  of  theological  instruction  from  the  col- 
lege curriculum  and  its  incorporation  into  a  separate  depart- 
ment resulted  not  only  in  marked  improvement  in  the 
facilities  for  theological  training,  but  also  in  a  further  secu- 
larizing of  the  college  proper;  so  that,  in  modern  times,  one 
hears  the  complaint  that  in  the  colleges  too  little  rather  than 
too  much  attention  is  devoted  to  rehgion.  The  beginnings 
of  this  change  are  found  about  the  year  1800. 

American  Congregationalism  has  proved  itself  remarkably 
productive  of  educational  institutions  of  the  higher  grades. 
Within  the  confines  of  New  England,  besides  Harvard  and 
Yale,  there  are  at  least  eight  collegiate  institutions  which  owe 

^  The  Hollis  professorship  at  Harvard  was  founded  in  1721,  and  had  only  three 
incumbents  before  the  appointment  of  Henry  Ware.  At  Yale  the  Livingston  (now 
Chittenden)  professorship  of  divinity  was  founded  in  1746.  It  had  four  incum- 
bents prior  to  the  establishment  of  the  department  of  divinity  in  1822. 


64  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

their  origin  to  Congregational  zeal  and  enterprise.  These 
are,  in  the  order  of  their  foundation,  Dartmouth,  WilHams, 
Bowdoin,  Middlebury,  Amherst,  Mount  Holyoke,  Smith,  and 
Wellesley.  The  last  three  suggest  one  of  the  most  striking 
changes  which  have  occurred  within  the  realm  of  the  higher 
education  in  modern  times, — the  opening  of  college  doors  to 
women.  Outside  of  New  England,  Congregational  enterprise 
has  been  no  less  marked,  in  connection  with  the  drift  of 
population  westward,  especially  since  i860.  Some  twenty 
colleges  of  good  standing,  scattered  through  the  West,  are 
proof  that  Christian  education  is  still  one  of  the  cardinal 
principles  of  the  denomination. 

In  connection  with  the  westward  expansion,  although  in 
one  of  its  earlier  stages,  a  scheme  of  cooperation,  known  as 
the  "  Plan  of  Union,"  was  worked  out  between  the  General 
Congregational  Association  of  Connecticut  and  the  Presby- 
terian General  Assembly.  This  provided  for  combined  effort 
in  planting  new  churches  through  central  New  York  and 
northern  Ohio,  and  declared  that  in  each  case  the  church 
should  decide  for  itself  with  which  of  the  two  denominations 
it  should  be  afliliated.  A  similar  privilege  of  choice  was 
provided  for  the  ministers.  The  Plan  contemplated  that 
both  Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  would  probably 
be  found  in  most  of  the  churches  thus  formed,  and  it  was 
believed  to  provide  with  fairness  for  the  interests  of  both. 
In  entering  into  this  irenic  project,  the  latent  presbyterial 
proclivities  of  Connecticut  Congregationalists  found  fresh 
expression. 

The  Plan  of  Union  was  well  conceived,  but  in  actual  opera- 
tion it  brought  ecclesiastical  advantage  to  the  Presbyterians. 
Their  presbyteries  were  geographically  nearer  and  more 
accessible;  their  poUty  seemed  to  the  new  churches  more 
compact  and  stable;  and,  most  important  of  all,  it  was  a 
poUty   into   which   an  independent  church  might  readily 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  65 

enter,  by  voting  to  apply  for  membership,  but  out  of  which 
no  church  might  pass  without  the  approving  vote  of  its  pres- 
bytery. "On  Congregational  principles,"  said  Dr.  A.  H. 
Ross,  "  a  church  may,  by  majority  vote,  carry  itself  and  its 
property  into  a  wilHng  Presbytery;  but  on  Presbyterian 
principles  no  church  can  withdraw  from  an  unwilling  Pres- 
bytery by  majority  vote."  Large  numbers  of  churches, 
which  would  naturally  have  been  Congregational,  became 
Presbyterian  under  this  Plan. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  prevailing  theology  of  these  newly 
founded  churches  was  of  the  New  England  type,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  type  represented  at  New  Haven  by  Professor 
Nathaniel  W.  Taylor,  a  teacher  of  marked  abihty,  but 
doctrinally  displeasing  to  many  conservative  Congregation- 
aHsts,  and  even  more  so  to  Presbyterians.  The  type  of 
theological  liberahty,  known  as  "  Taylorism,"  stamped  the 
young  Presbyterian  churches  as  objects  of  suspicion  in 
the  minds  of  Old  School  Presbyterians.  At  the  meeting  of 
the  General  Assembly  in  1837,  the  conservatives  found  them- 
selves in  the  majority,  and  seized  the  opportunity  to  abrogate 
the  Plan  of  Union.  They  claimed  that  it  was  null  and  void 
from  the  beginning,  inasmuch  as  the  General  Assembly  of 
1 801,  which  made  the  Plan,  had  no  right  to  treat  with  the 
General  Association  of  Connecticut,  which  was  not  a  national 
body  and  in  any  event  could  not  speak  or  legislate  for  the 
churches  that  composed  it.  And  the  Assembly  went  on  to 
exscind  four  entire  synods  made  up  of  the  union  churches. 
It  remained  for  the  Congregationalists  to  act,  but  this  was 
difficult,  for  opportunities  of  collective  action  were  not 
offered  by  their  poUty.  When,  however,  the  Albany  Con- 
vention was  assembled  (1852),  and  the  Congregationalists 
found  themselves  together  for  the  first  time  since  the  colonies 
had  become  a  nation,  the  question  was  brought  up.  The 
Convention  cherished  no  delusions  as  to  how  the  Plan  of 


(^  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Union  had  actually  worked.  "  They  have  milked  our  Con- 
gregational cows,"  said  one  speaker,  "  but  they  have  made 
nothing  but  Presbyterian  butter  and  cheese."  There  was 
Httle  to  be  done  except  declare  the  Plan  abrogated,  which 
the  Convention  proceeded  to  do.  It  thus  disappears  from 
history. 

The  Albany  Convention  was  the  first  general  gathering 
of  Congregationahsts  since  the  Cambridge  Synod  of  1648, 
and  it  naturally  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of  denomina- 
tional development,  as  seen  in  the  National  Council  of  more 
recent  times.  A  preliminary  council,  held  in  Boston  at  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War,  marks  the  first  step  towards  what  has 
become  a  fixed  institution,  although  the  original  call  for  this 
meeting  did  not  contemplate  its  recurrence  at  stated  inter- 
vals. Indeed,  it  was  still  a  question  whether  Congrega- 
tionalism provided  any  place  for  councils  as  a  part  of  its 
denominational  machinery.  Over  five  hundred  delegates 
were  in  attendance  at  Boston,  and  the  two  fundamental 
questions  of  faith  and  order  received  a  large  share  of  the 
Council's  attention.  On  both  there  was  vigorous  debate,  and 
considerable  differences  of  opinion  were  developed.  The 
main  achievements  of  the  Council  were  the  adoption  of  an 
admirable  statement  of  polity,  presented  by  Professor  Park 
of  Andover,  and  a  hastily  prepared  and  on  the  whole  rather 
insignificant  statement  of  beHef,  known  as  "  The  Burial 
Hill  Declaration  "  (1865). 

The  former  statement  runs  as  follows: 

Resolved,  that  this  Council  recognizes  as  distinctive  of  the  Congre- 
gational polity,  —  First,  the  principle  that  the  local  or  Congregational 
church  derives  its  power  and  authority  directly  from  Christ,  and  is 
not  subject  to  any  ecclesiastical  government  exterior  or  superior  to 
itself.  Second,  that  every  local  or  Congregational  church  is  bound  to 
observe  the  duties  of  mutual  respect  and  charity  which  are  included 
in  the  communion  of  churches  one  with  another;  and  that  every 
church  which  refuses  to  give  an  account  of  its  proceedings,  when  kindly 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  d^J 

and  orderly  desired  to  do  so  by  neighboring  churches,  violates  the 
law  of  Christ.  Third,  that  the  ministry  of  the  gospel  by  members  of 
the  churches  who  have  been  called  and  set  apart  to  that  work  implies 
in  itself  no  power  of  government,  and  that  ministers  of  the  gospel  not 
elected  to  office  in  any  church  are  not  a  hierarchy,  nor  are  they 
invested  with  any  official  power  in  or  over  the  churches.'^ 

With  regard  to  this  document,  Professor  Walker  remarks 
that  "  a  Mather  or  a  Cotton  would  have  looked  with  aston- 
ishment on  the  statement  that  the  duly  established  ministry 
imphes  'no  power  of  government,'  "  and  points  out  also 
that  it  gives  expression  to  the  more  democratic  type  of 
Congregationalism,  which  had  been  developed  in  New 
England. 

The  question  of  creed  involved  more  difficulty,  for  it 
appeared,  in  the  course  of  the  discussion,  that  there  was 
some  objection  to  the  employment  of  the  term  Calvinist, 
to  describe  the  theological  position  of  the  members  of  the 
Council.  This  objection  evoked  a  spirited  protest  from 
Professor  Park,  which  has  been  widely  quoted:  "  We  are 
Calvinists,"  he  said,  "  mainly,  essentially,  in  all  the  essen- 
tials of  our  faith.  And  the  man  who,  having  pursued  a  three- 
years'  course  of  study,  —  having  studied  the  Bible  in  the 
original  languages,  —  is  not  a  Calvinist,  is  not  a  respectable 
man."  Whatever  may  be  the  merits  of  his  argument,  with 
regard  to  which  there  is  obviously  room  for  difference  of 
opinion,  the  Council  finally  allowed  the  offensive  name  to 
pass.  But  the  statement  of  faith  was  a  sentimental  com- 
promise, proposed  at  a  meeting  held  on  Burial  Hill,  on 
an  excursion  to  Plymouth.  It  stood,  indeed,  as  the  only 
collective  declaration  of  Congregational  belief  since  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Westminster  Confession  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, but  it  was  for  the  most  part  ignored  by  the  churches, 
as  it  fully  deserved  to  be. 

1  Walker,  Creeds  and  Platforms,  pp.  567  f. 


68  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  regular  series  of  National  Councils  begins  with  that 
held  in  Oberlin,  in  1871,  to  celebrate  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
A  constitution  was  adopted  providing  for  a  triennial  session, 
at  which  there  should  be  discussion  of  matters  of  denomi- 
national interest,  but  no  legislation.  Judicial  powers  were 
likewise  excluded  from  the  Council's  province.  Plans  were 
formulated  whereby  the  churches  and  Congregational  asso- 
ciations should  be  proportionately  represented  at  the 
Councils,  and  a  declaration  on  the  unity  of  the  church  was 
put  forth,  which  in  substance  has  since  been  several  times 
repeated,  with  irenic  intent. 

There  have  been  in  all  sixteen  sessions  of  the  National 
Council,  meeting  until  very  lately  at  three-year  intervals, 
but  now  biennially,  in  accordance  with  a  revision  of  the 
constitution  adopted  in  1913.  The  sessions  have  seldom 
been  attended  by  much  more  than  one-half  the  number  of 
delegates  entitled  to  be  present,  showing  that  many  of  the 
Congregational  churches  have  not  interested  themselves  in 
the  cause  of  united  denominational  action.  But  the  history 
of  recent  years  indicates  a  growing  interest  in  the  Council, 
and  a  belief  that  it  can  wisely  and  safely  be  made  to  serve 
the  common  interests  of  the  churches,  which,  in  the  absence 
of  some  such  central  body,  might  perhaps  suffer.  These 
recent  developments,  with  the  demand  for  increased  effi- 
ciency and  a  more  compact  polity,  recall  the  Proposals  of 
1705,  and  the  provisions  of  the  Saybrook  Platform.  But 
little  objection  is  now  raised,  and  little  fear  of  too  great 
centralization  is  expressed,  —  so  accustomed  are  we  to 
the  existence  of  similar  movements  in  our  modern  indus- 
trial and  political  life.  The  traditional  principle  of  local 
independence  for  the  individual  church  is  thought  to  be 
sufficiently  safeguarded,  by  repeated  assertions  of  its 
inviolability. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  69 

In  pursuance  of  action  taken  at  the  Council  held  in  St. 
Louis,  in  1880,  the  preparation  of  a  new  creed  was  under- 
taken by  twenty-five  commissioners  who  had  been  carefully 
selected  to  represent  the  various  theological  tendencies  dis- 
cernible among  Congregationalists  at  the  time.  The  result 
of  their  deliberations  was  the  so-called  Commission  Creed 
of  1883.  It  was  put  forth  by  the  commissioners  themselves 
without  further  endorsement,  "  to  carry  such  weight  of 
authority  as  the  character  of  the  Commission  and  the  in- 
trinsic merit  of  their  exposition "  might  command.  The 
Creed  was  in  fact  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  suit  the  more 
progressive  members  of  the  Commission,  and  too  much  so 
to  suit  the  most  conservative,  three  of  whom  refused  to  sign 
it.  Among  the  signers  were  President  Seelye  of  Amherst 
College,  Dr.  Henry  M.  Dexter,  editor  of  TheCongregationalist, 
Professor  George  P.  Fisher  of  Yale,  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor, 
pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  church  of  New  York, 
Dr.  Alexander  McKenzie  of  Cambridge,  and  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott  of  Brooklyn.  The  three  who  refused  to  append  their 
names  were  Dr.  E.  K.  Alden,  Professor  W.  S.  Karr  of  Hart- 
ford Seminary,  and  Dr.  E.  P.  Goodwin. 

The  new  creed  proved  acceptable  to  the  churches  in 
general,  and  was  adopted  by  many  of  them  as  the  statement 
of  their  faith.  But  the  rapidity  with  which  modern  protes- 
tantism has  moved  away  from  the  older  dogmatic  thinking 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  at  the  expiration  of  only  thirty 
years,  the  churches  have  thought  it  desirable  to  frame  a  new 
and  still  shorter  creed.  The  Preamble  to  the  Kansas  City 
formula^  does  indeed  reaffirm  the  allegiance  of  Congrega- 
tionalism to  "  the  faith  which  our  fathers  confessed,  which 
from  age  to  age  has  found  expression  in  the  historic  creeds 
of  the  church  universal  and  of  this  communion,"  yet  when 
one  passes  on  to  examine  "  the  things  most  surely  believed 

^  Adopted  by  the  National  Council  in  19 13,  at  Kansas  City,  Mo. 


70  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

among  us,"  one  finds  them  comprised  in  a  very  brief  state- 
ment, about  as  long  as  the  Nicene  Creed,  but  strikingly  dif- 
ferent in  character.  Where  that  tried  to  be  minute  and 
precise,  —  and  succeeded,  —  this  tries  to  be  general.  And 
it  succeeds.  But  if  it  has  comparatively  little  to  say  of  the 
great  historic  affirmations  of  the  Christian  faith,  it  emphati- 
cally declares  the  church's  duty  to  serve  the  world,  in  full 
accord  with  the  modern  note  of  social  responsibiUty.  The 
creed  is  perhaps  as  good  a  one  as  could  be  framed  at  present, 
and  it  pledges  all  who  sign  it  to  the  active  exercise  of  Chris- 
tian living,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  some  of  the 
doctrinal  formulas  of  the  past. 

The  most  notable  illustration  of  the  vitahty  and  efiiciency 
of  the  loosely  organized  Congregationalism  of  one  hundred 
years  ago  is  to  be  found  in  the  formation  of  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions.  This  re- 
markable organization  with  its  world-wide  interests  was 
born  and  bred  in  New  England  and  has  its  legal  home  in 
the  ancient  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  New 
England  energy.  New  England  devotion,  and  New  Eng- 
land money,  that  made  Congregational  foreign  missions 
possible,  and  that  without  the  intervention  of  ecclesiastical 
machinery.  The  voluntary  association  of  like-minded  men 
and  the  zealous  cooperation  of  the  theological  school  at 
Andover  combined  to  create  a  great  philanthropic  and  re- 
ligious enterprise,  whose  influence  has  reached  out  to  the 
farthest  boundaries  of  the  earth.  The  Board's  missions, 
schools,  colleges,  hospitals,  and  institutions  for  manual 
training,  now  encircle  the  globe,  and  their  reflex  influence 
upon  the  churches  at  home  has  proved  to  be  of  the  highest 
value. ^ 

Other  enterprises  of  large  scope  and  usefulness  were  under- 
taken from  time  to  time,  as  the  nineteenth  century  pro- 

'  See  W.  E.  Strong,  The  Story  of  the  American  Board,  1910. 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  7 1 

gressed  and  as  the  work  of  home  missions,  church  building, 
and  education  began  to  call  for  better  organization  and 
equipment.  These  denominational  activities  were  entrusted 
to  voluntary  societies  of  national  scope,  which  have  fulfilled 
their  trust  with  commendable  devotion  and  success.  They 
have  recently  been  brought  into  organic  connection  with 
the  National  Council. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  religious  history  of  America  falls 
into  three  periods:  first,  the  metaphysical,  covering  most 
of  the  colonial  era;  secondly,  the  ethical,  including  the 
Unitarian  movement;  and  thirdly,  the  aesthetic,  limited 
to  the  last  half-century.  Whatever  may  be  the  propriety 
of  such  a  division,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  recent  years 
have  witnessed  a  marked  development  of  certain  kinds  of 
aesthetic  appreciation  and  ambition  which  were  lacking 
before.  Altered  forms  of  ecclesiastical  architecture,  the 
enrichment  of  public  worship,  and  the  general  abandonment 
of  Puritan  simpHcity,  all  are  signs  of  a  refinement  of  taste, 
but  perhaps  also  of  a  diminished  conviction  of  the  immediate 
presence  of  God,  which  was  such  a  notable  trait  of  the  early 
New  England  character.  Recent  sessions  of  the  National 
Council  have  approved  and  issued  forms  of  public  worship, 
for  optional  use  in  the  churches;  forms  for  the  Communion, 
for  baptism,  marriage,  and  the  burial  of  the  dead,  for  ordi- 
nations, and  for  the  dedication  of  church  buildings.  To 
supply  the  material  for  all  these,  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  has  been  liberally,  although  not  exclusively,  drawn 
upon.  Many  modern  Congregationalists  have  welcomed  these 
changes,  and  have  made  increasing  use  of  them;  whether  for 
good  or  ill,  remains  to  be  determined.  It  would  certainly  be 
a  serious  loss  to  our  free  churches  if  the  dignity  and  stateli- 
ness  of  the  older  Puritan  worship  were  to  disappear.  For 
they  were  the  external  signs  of  a  brave  and  manly  spirit, 
seeking  to  worship  God,  who  is  spirit,  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


72  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  development  of  a  stately  ritual  has  sometimes  been 
interpreted  as  a  mark  of  decaying  faith.  "  Religious  ideas," 
said  Lecky,  "  die  like  the  sun;  their  last  rays,  possessing 
little  heat,  are  expended  in  creating  beauty."  Just  as,  when 
daylight  wanes,  the  sky  above  our  heads  takes  on  its  tran- 
sient glories,  —  crimson  and  gold,  melting  into  the  softer 
tints  of  old  rose,  lavender,  opals,  and  amethyst,  until  dark- 
ness drops  her  veil  over  the  fading  twilight,  and  the  day  is 
done,  —  so  the  waning  forces  of  religion,  having  lost  their 
vital  power  of  warmth,  lose  themselves  in  the  fair  colors  of 
the  evening  sky.  I  would  not  be  understood  as  giving  to 
this  sentiment  an  unqualified  approval.  Then  were  the  his- 
toric worship  of  Christendom  one  long  expression  of  deca- 
dence. Yet  it  undeniably  contains  an  element  of  truth,  to 
which  modern  Congregationalists  may  well  take  heed. 

Congregationalism  has  always  proved  itself  productive  of 
men  qualified  for  leadership  through  their  nurture  in  the 
philosophy  of  individualism.  In  this  respect  the  nineteenth 
century  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Without  attempting 
anything  like  a  complete  catalogue,  we  may  single  out  the 
names  of  Moses  Stuart,  pioneer  Biblical  scholar  of  America, 
who  taught  philological  methods  which  have  led  the  way 
for  all  his  successors,  not  only  in  his  own  department  of  the 
Semitic  languages  but  also  in  the  classics;  and  Leonard 
Bacon,  eminent  as  pastor  and  denominational  leader,  who 
with  moderation  and  diplomatic  skill  guided  the  churches 
of  New  England  through  many  difficult  years;  and  Mark 
Hopkins,  beloved  president  of  Williams  College,  the  fore- 
most educator  of  youth  of  his  time,  to  know  whom  was 
esteemed  a  liberal  education;  and  Horace  Bushnell,  seer 
of  visions  hidden  to  the  many,  who  was  faithful  to  the  spirit 
of  the  past,  yet  able  to  interpret  for  his  fellow  ministers  the 
theology  of  the  future;  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  greatest 
pulpit  orator  of  his  generation  in  America,  whose  voice  was 


THE  CONGREGATIONALISTS  73 

never  silent,  nor  his  pen  idle,  in  the  presence  of  injustice 
and  human  wrong.  These  names  stand  out  distinctly,  yet 
beside  them  are  others  which  offer  no  unworthy  contrast  to 
their  fame.  There  are  many  who  have  deserved  well  of 
God  and  man.  Every  lover  of  light  and  progress  should 
pray  that  the  succession  fail  not  in  the  years  to  come. 

The  New  England  of  the  twentieth  century  is  not  the 
New  England  of  the  Puritans,  nor  even  that  of  fifty  years 
ago.  Permanent  changes  have  come  over  every  aspect  of 
its  life;  the  old  social  homogeneity  is  gone,  never  to  return, 
and  the  institutions  which  gave  it  character  have,  to  a  large 
degree,  gone  with  it.  We  now  behold  a  heterogeneous  indus- 
trial population,  drawn  from  many  foreign  nationalities  and 
crowded  into  our  great  cities,  and  an  idle  summer  population, 
at  seashore  and  in  the  mountains,  drawn  from  the  leisure 
classes  far  and  near.  Many  types  of  religion  and  irreligion, 
undreamed  of  by  the  fathers,  have  taken  root  among  us. 
Everywhere  He  new  problems  for  organized  Christianity. 
Our  free  churches,  with  their  elasticity  and  power  of  adap- 
tation, should  prove  capable  of  discharging  their  new  tasks. 
But  to  do  so  with  success,  they  need  a  faith  as  strong,  and 
a  devotion  as  overmastering,  as  our  fathers  brought  with 
them  to  these  shores,  when,  in  the  fear  of  God  and  in  humble 
rehance  upon  His  almighty  aid,  they  laid  the  foundations 
of  a  Christian  state,  and  established  churches  dedicated  to 
freedom,  truth,  and  human  brotherhood. 


II 

THE    REVOLT   AGAINST   THE   STANDING 

ORDER 

I.  Popular  Movements 
II.  The  Unitarians 

WILLIAM  W.  FENN 


THE   REVOLT  AGAINST   THE 
STANDING  ORDER 

I.   POPULAR  MOVEMENTS 

IN  a  recent  book  entitled  A  Century's  Change  in  Religion, 
Dr.  George  Harris,  honored  ex-President  of  Amherst 
College,  amusingly  suggests  that  the  standing  order  in 
Connecticut  was  so  called  from  the  Congregational  habit  of 
standing,  while  Episcopalians  knelt,  during  prayer  time.  In 
similarly  playful  vein  one  might  derive  the  term  from  the 
fixedness  of  the  churches,  standing  pat,  as  it  were,  behind 
apparently  impregnable  intrenchments  of  creed  and  cult  and 
custom,  with  no  aspiration  for  advance  or  dread  of  dislodge- 
ment.  In  reality,  however,  the  designation  implies  no  more 
than  that  the  Congregational  churches  constituted  the  estab- 
lished church,  from  which  all  others  were  regarded  as  dis- 
senters. In  their  several  communities  each  was  the  church 
of  the  town,  serving  the  whole  town  and  supported  by  a 
tax  levied  proportionally  upon  all  the  inhabitants. 

With  certain  qualifications  to  be  made  hereafter,  such 
was  the  situation  in  Massachusetts  at  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century,  but  already  there  were  signs  of  disaffection 
towards  this  standing  order.  In  the  present  lecture  two  of 
these  movements  of  dissent,  popular  in  character,  are  to  be 
considered,  namely  the  Free  Will  Baptists  and  the  Chris- 
tians, each  of  which  traces  its  origin  in  New  England  to  a 
single  individual,  the  former  to  Benjamin  Randall  of  New 
Hampshire,  the  latter  to  Abner  Jones  of  Vermont.  Benja- 
min Randall  was  born  in  Newcastle,  New  Hampshire,  in 

77 


78  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

1749,  and  was  converted  in  1770,  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Whitefield,  and  partly  in  consequence  of  feelings  awakened 
by  it.  Randall's  "  exodus  through  the  churches  "  is  of 
interest  as  typical  of  the  contemporary  religious  drift.  He 
was  brought  up  in  the  Congregational  church,  but  his  warm 
religious  nature  and,  in  particular,  his  sympathy  with  the 
preaching  of  Whitefield,  found  httle  satisfaction  in  the  cold 
and  arid  type  of  piety  then  prevailing  in  the  Congregational 
churches,  and  consequently  he  soon  set  up  a  private  meeting 
for  prayer  in  his  own  house,  which  was  frowned  upon  by  the 
local  pastor.  Similarly,  at  the  time  of  the  Great  Awakening, 
those  who  sympathized  with  it  found  most  of  the  churches 
of  the  standing  order  chilly  and  uncongenial  and  as  a  result 
became  Separates,  or  New  Lights,  founding  churches,  some 
of  which  afterwards  became  Baptist.  Following  the  same 
course,  and  convinced  by  his  study  of  the  Scriptures  that 
immersion  of  adult  believers  was  the  only  true  mode  of 
Christian  baptism,  Randall  next  joined  a  Baptist  church. 
But  he  soon  found  that  here  was  no  resting  place  for  his 
adventurous  spirit.  At  this  time  the  Baptist  churches  in 
New  England  were  Calvinistic  in  theology,  and  Randall, 
who  had  come  to  see  in  Jesus  "  universal  love,  a  universal 
atonement,  a  universal  call  to  man,  and  felt  confident  that 
none  could  ever  perish  but  those  who  refused  to  obey," 
found  his  eager  desire  to  preach  a  free  Gospel  blocked  by 
the  strict  Calvinistic  doctrines  of  election  and  limited 
atonement.  Nevertheless  he  preached,  but  was  soon  called 
to  account  by  his  Baptist  brethren,  who,  if  they  did  not 
actually  disfellowship  him,  manifested  such  a  spirit  of  oppo- 
sition to  him  and  the  work  he  was  doing  that  again  he  went 
forth  out  of  the  camp  and  in  1780  organized  a  church  in  the 
town  where  he  then  lived,  New  Durham,  New  Hampshire. 
This,  like  churches  already  existing  in  Canterbury  and  Crown 
Point,  was  at  once  Arminian  in  doctrine,  holding  to  free 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  79 

will,  and  Baptist  in  practice,  because  it  maintained  believers' 
baptism  by  immersion.  Not  until  some  time  afterwards 
was  the  name  of  Free  Will  Baptist  accepted,  after  the  simple 
designation  Baptist  had  been  rubbed  off  by  controversy 
and  before  the  more  comprehensive  name  of  Free  Baptist 
came  to  be  generally  preferred.  The  movement  thus  begun 
spread  with  amazing  rapidity  throughout  eastern  New  Eng- 
land revealing  a  wide-spread  popular  dislike  for  the  stand- 
ing order.  Its  preachers  going  beyond  New  England  soon 
fell  in  with  groups  of  people  who  had  reached  substantially 
the  same  views  independently  —  Free,  or  Open,  Communion 
Baptists  in  western  New  York,  Separate  Baptists  in  Ken- 
tucky and  elsewhere,  some  of  whom,  although  not  all,  were 
gathered  into  Free  Will  Baptist  fellowship.  I  say  not  all, 
for  it  should  be  remembered  with  praise  that  when  in  1839 
one  Dr.  Housley  appeared  before  the  General  Conference 
as  representative  of  several  thousand  persons  in  Kentucky 
holding  Free  Will  Baptist  sentiments  and  seeking  fellow- 
ship, the  overtures  were  promptly  refused  on  the  discovery 
that  many  of  these  sympathizers,  including  Dr.  Housley 
himself,  were  slave-holders. 

Of  the  honorable  history  of  these  Free  Will  Baptist 
churches  in  New  England,  I  cannot  speak  at  length.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  is  reported  to  have  said  that  they  were  al- 
ways on  the  right  side  of  every  moral  question  and  on  the 
evangelical  side  of  every  controverted  doctrine;  and  the 
tribute  was  well  deserved.  Although  their  early  preachers 
were  ilHterate  men,  and,  for  reasons  soon  to  be  mentioned, 
there  was  a  prejudice  in  the  denomination  against  an  edu- 
cated ministry,  some  of  the  itinerants  sought  to  make  good 
their  literary  deficiencies  by  private  study  and,  in  order  that 
their  successors  and  the  youth  of  the  denomination  might 
have  privileges  which  they  themselves  had  never  enjoyed, 
set  to  work  to  convert  the  fellowship  to  their  point  of  view 


8o  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

by  awakening  an  interest  in  education.  The  labor  was  hard 
and  often  discouraging,  but  successful:  a  book  concern  was 
established,  The  Morning  Star  was  taken  over,  academies 
were  set  up,  and  Bates  College  was  founded.  Finally  after 
a  most  creditable  career,  seeing  that  the  Baptist  churches 
in  general  had  mitigated  their  Calvinism  and  were  upholding 
substantially  the  same  principles  which  they  had  champi- 
oned from  the  beginning,  the  Free  Baptists  returned  to  the 
fold  from  which  Randall  and  his  friends  had  regretfully 
departed  and  as  a  separate  denomination  died  in  glory. 

The  Christians  trace  their  origin  to  a  certain  Abner  Jones 
who  was  born  in  Royalston,  Massachusetts,  in  1772,  but 
soon  moved  to  Vermont  where,  in  the  town  of  Lyndon,  the 
first  Christian  church  in  New  England,  and  so  far  as  he 
knew,  in  the  modern  world,  was  organized  in  1801.  Per- 
sonally this  Abner  Jones  does  not  impress  one  quite  so 
favorably  as  Randall.  He  seems  to  have  been  of  a  roving 
temper,  never  continuing  long  in  one  stay,  shifting  easily 
from  doctoring  to  preaching  and  back  again,  gaining  local 
fame  as  a  cancer  doctor  in  possession  of  a  secret  cure,  —  a 
rather  flighty  spirit  in  contrast  to  Randall's  soHdity;  never- 
theless he  had  come  upon  a  noble  idea,  even  nobler  perhaps 
than  Randall's.  It  was  that  all  party  designations  degrade 
the  followers  of  Christ,  who  should  bear  and  honor  their 
Master's  name  alone.  Although  he  himself  was  ordained 
by  the  Free  Will  Baptists  it  was  with  the  express  under- 
standing that  he  would  never  acknowledge  the  name,  al- 
though he  would  work  in  fellowship  with  them,  as  he  would 
with  any  followers  of  Christ  of  whatever  name  who  would 
work  with  him.  Elder  Jones  was  a  versifier,  writing ' '  pomes  " 
which  all  came  in  rhyme  somehow,  and  one  of  these  effu- 
sions sets  forth  his  cardinal  principle: 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  8 1 


MY  CREED 


Of  all  unscriptural  names  that  are 
In  christian  churches  claimed  so  fair, 
'Gainst  them  I  enter  my  dissent; 
On  Christ's  sole  name  my  mind  is  bent. 

The  church  of  Rome  and  England  too, 
Are  names  of  men,  which  once  were  new; 
The  highly  boasted  Baptist  name, 
And  Methodist  are  all  the  same. 

The  Presbyterian,  polite, 

And  Universalist  so  light. 

The  honest  Quaker,  thee  and  thou. 

Are  merely  names  of  men,  I  trow. 

Disciple,  follower,  christian,  friend, 
For  these  I  equally  contend! 
With  every  other  scripture  sound, 
In  Gospel  rule  that  can  be  found. 

Altho'  these  names,  I  do  reject. 
Yet  those  who  hold  them  I  respect 
As  brethren  in  the  Lord  of  life; 
So  live  in  love  and  quit  all  strife. 

My  fellowship  in  Christ  is  boimd 
To  all  those  souls  where  love  is  found 
Of  every  order,  sect,  and  name,  — 
In  Christ  I  count  them  all  the  same. 

At  first  the  relations  between  Christians  and  Free  Will 
Baptists  were  close  and  cordial,  but  the  two  bodies  gradu- 
ally drew  apart.  Under  the  influence  of  Elias  Smith,  the 
Christians  were  led  to  appear  sympathetic  with  Universal- 
ism,  or  at  least  with  the  doctrine  of  the  annihilation  of  the 
wicked.  Moreover,  in  their  aversion  to  unscriptural  terms, 
the  Christians  were  reluctant  to  speak  of  the  Trinity,  for 
example,  and  were  supposed  to  be  verging  towards  Uni- 


82  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

tarians  with  whom,  however,  they  had  no  commerce.  Be- 
sides, their  preachers,  hke  those  of  the  Free  Will  Baptists, 
in  their  journeyings  over  the  country  fell  in  with  isolated 
groups  who  sympathized  with  their  principles  and  in  some 
cases  had  actually  taken  the  name  Christian  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  every  other.  The  Christian  Connexion  of  the  West 
which  now  has  its  headquarters  in  Dayton,  and  the  great 
company  of  the  Disciples  or  Campbellites,  some  of  whom 
call  themselves  simply  "  Christians,"  arose  quite  independ- 
ently of  the  New  England  Christians,  although  often  con- 
fused with  them  in  the  popular  mind.  There  are  still  to  be 
found  hereabouts  a  few  Christian  churches,  but  they  are 
few,  ninety-four  according  to  the  Government  Report  of 
1906,  and  weak,  and  their  affiliation  is  now  with  the  West- 
ern Connexion,  although  in  the  case  of  such  as  have  survived 
from  the  original  New  England  movement  the  affiliation  is 
rather  tenuous. 

Having  referred  to  the  travelling  preachers  of  the  Free 
Will  Baptists  and  the  Christians,  let  me  here  speak  very 
briefly  of  them  and  of  their  biographies.  Fortunately  many 
of  them  were  in  the  habit  of  keeping  journals  which  found 
their  way  into  print,  and  I  know  of  no  books  richer  in  human 
interest  than  these  memoirs  and  none  which  throw  more 
light  upon  the  life  of  New  England  farming  communities 
during  the  first  half  of  the  last  century.  The  biographies, 
in  most  cases  the  autobiographies,  of  Fernald,  Jones,  and 
EUas  Smith  among  the  Christians,  of  Randall,  Phinney, 
Marks,  Stinchfield,  Young,  Colby,  and  Bowles  among  the 
Free  Will  Baptists,  are  a  comparatively  unworked  mine  of 
rich  material.  These  were  all  uneducated  men,  not  one  of 
whom  had  received  the  equivalent  of  a  modern  high-school 
training,  but  they  were  of  quick  understanding  in  the  fear 
of  the  Lord,  and  their  originally  large  endowment  of  mother 
wit  was  increased  by  their  experience  with  all  sorts  and  con- 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  83 

ditions  of  folk  on  the  country-side.  Not  for  them,  the  formal 
meeting-houses  with  pews  remote  from  the  pulpit  propped 
high  above  them  at  what  Lowell  called  the  natural  angle  of 
somnolence;  they  preached  usually  in  school  houses,  barns, 
and  private  houses,  where  they  could  see  the  whites  of  their 
auditors'  eyes  and  read  their  shifting  moods  of  approval  or 
dissent.  So  they  became  incomparable  practical  psycholo- 
gists, knowing  how  to  reach  the  hearts  of  their  hearers. 
Being  men  of  the  people  they  knew  how  their  fellows  thought, 
and  spoke  the  language  of  the  field  and  the  village  store  with 
occasional  flights,  or  falls,  into  rhymes  hke  those  which  dis- 
figured the  local  poetry  column  of  the  country  newspaper. 
Their  nearness  to  the  people  in  the  meeting  places  was  sym- 
bohc  of  their  nearness  to  them  in  every  respect.  Their 
words  went  home  because  they  had  not  far  to  go.  From 
mind  to  mind  half  the  circuit  of  the  world  may  lie,  but  heart 
to  heart  is  very  near.  Besides,  although  there  were  a  few 
impostors,  nobody  could  suspect  these  wandering  preachers, 
when  properly  accredited,  of  selfish  or  sordid  motives.  Preach- 
ing was  not  a  mere  trade  with  them,  there  was  no  money 
in  it.  Often  they  would  ride  off  on  a  long  journey  of  many 
hundred  miles  with  but  a  few  cents  in  pocket,  and  return 
with  even  less  than  when  they  started.  They  had  no  stated 
salary;  a  coin  pressed  into  the  hand  by  a  friendly  listener  who 
"  didn't  want  to  steal  his  preaching,"  and  whose  kindness, 
whether  the  gift  were  a  shilling  or  a  dollar,  was  often  grate- 
fully acknowledged  in  the  Journal,  enabled  them  to  pay  their 
tolls,  and  their  keep  when  hospitality  failed,  but  that  was 
all.^  Why  should  they  leave  their  occupations  to  undergo 
these  hardships,  and  subject  their  families  to  even  greater, 
unless  they  really  felt  the  Lord's  call  to  labor  for  the  souls 

^  "  I  had  spent  more  than  two  months  in  Canada  and  travelled  five  hundred 
miles.  The  people  generally  were  kind  and  liberal.  Though  among  strangers  and 
often  lodging  at  public  houses,  my  expenses,  besides  some  repairs,  had  not  amounted 
to  fifty  cents."    (1827),  Marks,  p.  174. 


84  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

of  men.  So  reasoned  the  common  people,  not  unwisely, 
and  their  confidence  followed  their  logic.  These  itinerant 
preachers  were  men  of  power:  some,  like  Fernald,  were 
gifted  with  physical  strength,  and  voices  which  when  uplifted 
in  prayer  or  preaching  reached  the  ears  of  sinners  a  mile  or 
even  two  miles  away  with  subduing  and  convincing  power; 
others  were  of  fragile  frame,  like  John  Colby,  early  marked 
for  death  and  swaying  the  hearts  of  men  Uke  messengers 
from  the  invisible  world  —  but  all  of  them  were  men  of 
force  and  their  influence  upon  the  popular  religious  life  of 
New  England  was  incalculable.  The  principal  point,  how- 
ever, is  that  these  preachers  were  successful  because  they 
gave  articulate  utterance  to  sentiments  which  were  potent 
but  unformulated  in  the  hearts  of  the  common  people. 
Their  homely  speech  revealed  the  thoughts  of  many  minds. 
In  them,  therefore,  we  discover  a  protest  against  the  stand- 
ing order  which  had  to  do  mainly  with  three  points,  — 
pohty,  creed,  and  experimental  religion. 

With  respect  to  polity,  the  objection  was  to  certain  eccle- 
siastical usages  connected  with  the  calling  and  settling  of 
ministers,  especially  the  holding  of  church  councils,  which 
were  deemed  unscriptural,  and  particularly  to  the  practice 
of  supporting  the  churches  by  a  public  tax,  in  which  they 
were  at  one  with  the  Baptists.  The  history  of  the  last- 
mentioned  usage  must  be  briefly  recapitulated.  Before 
Endicott's  company  sailed  for  Salem,  the  New  England 
Company  contracted  with  Bright,  Higginson,  and  Skelton 
to  come  over  with  the  planters  as  ministers.  Their  salaries 
were  to  be  paid  one-half  by  the  planters  and  one-half  from 
the  Joint  Stock,  afterwards  changed  to  the  Common  Stock, 
of  the  Company.  Immediately  after  the  arrival  of  Win- 
throp's  Company,  however,  provision  was  made  for  the 
support  of  Wilson  and  Phillips  by  assessment  upon  all  the 
colonists  save  those  of  Salem  and  Mattapan,  where  other 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  85 

arrangements  already  existed.  In  Boston,  Cotton  came  out 
strongly  for  voluntary  support,  and  afterwards  none  of  the 
churches  in  Boston  was  ever  supported  by  public  tax.  Else- 
where, also,  the  voluntary  system  was  favored,  but  it  soon 
appeared  that  on  account  of  unwillingness  to  contribute  on 
the  part  of  those  who  were  not  members  of  the  church  the 
amount  raised  was  insufficient  to  maintain  properly  the 
minister,  or  ministers,  and  consequently  a  demand  arose 
that  since  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  town  did,  or  might,  enjoy 
the  privileges  of  the  Gospel,  all  should  pay  for  its  support. 
Both  the  Massachusetts  Law  of  1638  and  the  Recommenda- 
tions by  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies  in  1644 
recognize  the  voluntary  system  in  principle  but  declare  that 
if  a  man  refuses  to  contribute  he  may  be  assessed.  This  is 
the  view  also  of  the  Cambridge  Platform.  But  a  law  of 
163 1,  refusing  the  franchise  to  all  who  were  not  church 
members,  precluded  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  town  save  those 
who  were  in  full  communion  with  the  church  from  any  voice 
in  the  choice  of  a  minister  or  in  the  management  of  church 
affairs.  Therefore  these  outsiders  were  naturally  averse 
to  paying  for  the  support  of  a  minister  in  whose  selection 
they  had  not  been  consulted,  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
pubhc  worship  from  the  most  sacred  and  precious  rite  of 
which  —  the  Lord's  Supper  —  they  were  excluded.  As 
Englishmen,  they  claimed  the  right  to  enjoy  the  Communion 
here  as  in  the  mother  country,  but  this  was  denied  them 
unless  they  should  first  be  chosen  into  membership  after  a 
somewhat  inquisitorial  examination  and  the  presentation  of 
a  Spiritual  Relation,  nor  until  the  adoption  of  the  Half-way 
Covenant  were  they  authorized  to  offer  their  children  for 
baptism  unless  at  least  one  parent  was  in  full  communion. 
But  even  the  Half-way  Covenant  applied  only  to  baptized, 
although  non-communicating,  members  of  the  churches 
here,  and  conferred  no  right  to  the  franchise.     Obviously, 


86  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

therefore,  their  resentment  would  be  heightened  if  they 
should  be  compelled  to  pay  for  the  support  of  such  a  church, 
but  this  soon  came  to  pass.  By  an  act  of  1654,  the  County 
Courts  were  empowered  to  order  the  selectmen  of  a  town  to 
assess  all  its  inhabitants  for  ministerial  support.  This  was 
upon  complaint  laid  before  the  Court;  but  later  the  Court 
was  instructed  to  take  the  initiative  by  ordering  the  Grand 
Jury  for  each  County  "  to  present  all  abuses  and  neglects 
of  this  kind  in  order  that  God  may  continue  his  favorable 
presence."  The  course  of  legislation  indicating  the  drift  of 
popular  opinion  is  reasonably  plain.  Theoretically  the 
voluntary  system  was  honored,  but  in  practice  it  was  found 
not  to  work  satisfactorily  and  to  be  in  need  of  supplement- 
ing by  enforced  assessment.  When  the  old  order  ceased 
with  the  recaUing  of  the  original  charter,  and,  with  the  ad- 
mittance of  all  freeholders  to  the  franchise  without  religious 
quahfications,  one  objection  to  the  assessment  principle 
was  removed,  but  the  principle  of  taxation  was  positively 
affirmed  by  the  act  of  1692.  During  the  provincial  period 
this  principle  underlies  all  the  legislation.  But  other  and 
graver  difficulties  soon  appeared.  In  the  earlier  days,  un- 
willingness to  contribute  might  sometimes  be  ascribed  to 
meanness,  or  indifference  to  religion  and  the  public  welfare, 
but  subsequently  the  Courts  had  to  deal  also,  and  in- 
creasingly, with  persons  who  refused  as  a  matter  of  con- 
science to  pay  their  town  assessments  for  religious  purposes. 
Quakers,  who  disbelieved  in  a  hireling  ministry,  and  Bap- 
tists —  Anabaptists  as  they  were  popularly  called  —  took 
it  ill  that  they  were  taxed  against  their  consciences  for  the 
support  of  hireling,  or  paedo-baptist,  preachers  and  de- 
manded exemption.  The  existence  of  such  persons  is  noted 
in  an  act  of  1702,  but  apparently  no  exemption  was  made 
in  their  favor  until  by  pressure  from  England  it  was  enacted, 
with  certain  qualifications,  in  behalf  of  the  Episcopalians 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  87 

in  1727.  In  the  very  next  year,  1728,  we  find  a  similar  law- 
exempting  Quakers  and  Anabaptists,  alleging  a  scruple  of 
conscience.  From  this  date  until  1833,  when  the  principle 
of  public  taxation  for  the  support  of  worship  was  formally 
abandoned,  there  is  a  long  string  of  exemption  laws  which 
it  would  be  tedious  to  rehearse.  They  were  designed  to 
guard  against  the  extension  of  exemption  to  persons  who 
claimed  relief  out  of  mere  stinginess  and  not  on  the  ground 
of  conscience,  but  provisions  of  such  a  character  always 
prove  most  irritating  to  the  best  of  those  who  are  affected 
by  them,  and  so  antagonism  to  the  system  was  steadily  on 
the  increase.  In  the  Constitution  of  1780  the  principle  of 
assessment  was  again  formally  recognized  but  along  with  it 
is  the  provision  that  on  application  any  man's  tax  may 
be  paid  to  the  minister  of  the  church  which  he  attends 
and  there  is  also  the  significant  sentence,  "  No  subordination 
of  any  one  sect  or  denomination  to  another  shall  ever 
be  established  by  law."  This  would  seem  to  have  been 
sufficiently  equitable,  granting  the  fundamental  principle,  to 
silence  all  reasonable  objections,  but  in  practice  there  proved 
to  be  many  grievances.  Upon  a  Baptist  for  example  the 
tax  might  be  levied  and  collected,  but  if  there  were  no 
Baptist  minister  resident  in  the  town  upon  whose  minis- 
trations he  could  regularly  attend,  the  tax  might  be  turned 
in  to  the  support  of  the  Congregational  minister.  Besides, 
practically,  the  whole  matter  lay  in  the  hands  of  the  asses- 
sors, or  selectmen,  and  if  they  decided  unjustly  it  was  for 
the  party  injured  to  sue  —  a  long  and  costly  process.  It  is 
not  surprising  then  that  this  system  of  public  taxation  for 
the  support  of  the  ministry  with  all  its  abuses  and  griev- 
ances became  a  source  of  exasperation  and  resentment 
against  the  standing  order.  In  the  memoirs  of  Free  Will 
Baptist  and  Christian  preachers  one  finds  abundant  refer- 
ences to  the  dislike  entertained  for  the  system.    The  feeling 


88  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

which  was  fundamental  to  these  protesting  denominations 
led  to  unfortunate  consequences,  for  it  tended  to  leave  the 
support  of  their  ministers  entirely  to  the  good  will  of  the 
people,  and  that  could  not  invariably  be  depended  upon. 
It  was  only  after  a  severe  struggle  that  the  wiser  leaders 
succeeded  in  arousing  a  denominational  sentiment  in  favor 
of  the  decent  and  regular  maintenance  of  the  ministers. 

More  important,  however,  than  the  opposition  to  the 
polity  of  the  standing  order  was  the  protest  against  its 
doctrine.  Most  of  the  itinerant  preachers  were  of  Baptist 
antecedents,  —  that  is,  they  had  come  to  believe  that  the 
Congregational  churches  were  unscriptural  in  their  views 
concerning  baptism;  but  if  paedo-baptism  cannot  stand  the 
test  of  Scripture,  can  Calvinism  ?  Here  was  the  point  of 
departure  and,  more  specifically,  the  doctrine  of  election 
which  was  central  in  Calvinism.  Nearly  every  memoir  gives 
evidence  of  the  effect  of  this  doctrine  upon  the  mind  of 
the  child  who  afterwards  became  a  missionary.  One  may 
be  cited  as  t5qDical  —  from  the  Hfe  of  Billy  Hibbard,  a 
Methodist  itinerant  in  Berkshire  County. 

When  this  Billy  Hibbard  was  a  boy  of  eleven  or  twelve, 
he  fell  into  the  habit  of  profanity,  which  seemed  to  him 
source  and  sum  of  all  his  wickedness.  One  day  sitting  be- 
fore a  bright  and  hot  open  fire,  it  occurred  to  him  that  in 
such  a  fire  he  must  lie  to  all  eternity.  Hence,  he  sought  to 
repent  for  all  his  sins,  but  found  so  many  that  he  feared  he 
should  not  live  to  remember  them  all  and  repent  of  them 
sufficiently.  Feeling  that  it  was  useless  to  pray  for  himself, 
he  resolved  to  intercede  for  other  sinners  and  while  doing 
this  he  had  an  overwhelming  religious  experience.  Then 
he  fell  in  with  a  religious  neighbor: 

I  heard  him  say  that  God  had  decreed  all  things  whatsoever  cometh 
to  pass,  sin  not  excepted,  and  that  God  had  elected  from  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world  all  that  ever  would  or  could  be  saved;   and 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  89 

the  rest  were  reprobated  so  that  they  could  not  be  saved.  Of  the 
elect,  he  said  they  might  live  here  in  sin  and  wickedness  all  their  days, 
until  a  little  before  the  breath  went  out  of  their  bodies,  and  then  God 
would  by  his  special  grace  convert  them,  and  take  them  to  Heaven. 
Of  the  reprobates,  he  said,  they  might  have  conviction  of  sin,  and 
repent  and  live  apparently  very  religious  lives,  so  that  we  might  think 
them  very  good  Christians;  but  God  would  never  convert  them; 
and  though  they  might  lead  moral  and  seemingly  religious  lives  until 
they  were  eighty  or  ninety  years  old  it  would  only  work  out  for  them 
an  aggravated  damnation,  for  God  had  fixed  them  for  it  by  his  eternal 
decree,  while  the  elect  could  not  possibly  commit  a  sin  that  could  in 
any  wise  endanger  their  salvation.  If  a  man  committed  murder  many 
times,  or  hung  himself,  and  he  was  only  one  of  God's  elect,  he  would 
be  pardoned  and  taken  immediately  to  heaven;  that  good  works,  or 
faith,  or  anything  we  could  do  was  no  condition  of  our  salvation,  for 
it  was  unconditional,  that  it  all  depended  on  the  covenant  of  grace 
and  this  covenant  of  grace  he  represented  as  being  wholly  with  the 
Father  and  the  Son  before  the  foundation  of  the  world;  that  the 
Father  then  gave  all  the  elect  to  his  Son,  if  he  would  die  for  them, 
and  the  rest  were  left  and  reprobated. 

With  these  sentiments  the  neighbors  seemed  to  agree, 
and  the  minister  also,  hence  with  becoming  modesty  Hib- 
bard  supposed  they  must  be  true,  although  they  horrified 
and  dismayed  him.  How  could  he  know  that  he  was  elect  ? 
He  thought  of  a  sign,  but  dared  not  venture,  lest  the  result 
should  be  unfavorable;  he  undertook  a  jtrnip,  so  long  that 
he  supposed  he  could  not  cover  it  without  divine  assistance 
—  and  then  slyly  shortened  it,  but  on  achieving  the  jump 
doubted  whether  the  Lord's  assistance  had  been  needed  or 
given;  he  flogged  himself  that  he  might  remember  to  live 
faithful  to  God  in  the  hope  that  so  he  might  become  of  the 
elect,  but  through  it  all  this  thought  disturbed  his  mind: 
"  If  you  are  elected  to  be  saved,  you  will  be  saved;  and 
if  you  are  reprobated  to  be  damned,  you  will  be  damned; 
and  why  need  you  pray  so  much  ?  "  Finally,  he  came  al- 
most to  the  point  of  hanging  himself,  thinking  that  if  he 


90  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

were  reprobated,  longer  life  would  only  add  to  his  eternal 
misery. 

Undoubtedly,  poor  little  Billy  Hibbard  had  fallen  in 
with  extreme  Calvinists,  and  his  doubts  and  misgivings 
were  not  wholly  just,  or,  in  their  legitimate  form,  unanswer- 
able, yet  he  was  typical  of  many  whose  anxious  and  horror- 
stricken  hearts  were  crying  out  against  the  doctrine  of 
election.  Moreover,  so  closely  knit  is  the  Calvinistic  system 
that  to  pluck  but  a  single  thread  unravels  at  last  the  entire 
fabric.  With  denial  of  predestination  goes,  logically,  re- 
jection of  limited  atonement.  True,  the  Hopkinsians  had 
introduced  the  moral  government  theory,  which,  in  contrast 
with  the  penal  theory  in  the  form  either  of  equivalence  or 
satisfaction,  did  permit  the  preaching  of  a  general  atone- 
ment, but  the  Free  Will  Baptists  and  Christians  whom  we 
now  have  in  view  seem  to  have  been  quite  unaware  of  this 
development.  Living  in  the  interior  of  New  Hampshire  and 
Vermont,  they  knew  little  of  the  Hopkinsians,  and  their 
contact  was  mainly  with  the  Old  Calvinism,  emphasizing 
election,  limited  atonement,  and  the  perseverance  of  the 
saints.  But  is  this  Scriptural  ?  How  can  election  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  general  invitations  with  which  the  Bible 
abounds  ?  With  biting  sarcasm,  Lorenzo  Dow  called  Cal- 
vinists "  the  A-L-L  Part  men  "  by  which  he  meant  that 
where  all  occurs  in  the  Bible  they  read  and  interpret  it 
part.  As  the  very  name  implies,  the  Free  Will  Baptists 
preached  human  freedom  as  against  divine  sovereignty  in 
predestination,  and  in  this  they  and  the  Christians  were  at 
one.  With  this  was  associated  a  doctrine  of  universal  atone- 
ment becoming  efficacious  for  every  man  who  sincerely 
believes  in  Christ  and  is  regenerated  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
A  favorite  way  of  putting  it  was  that  every  man  is  elected 
when  he  believes,  or,  in  cleverer  phrase,  every  man  is  elected 
who  votes  for  himself.     So  these  itinerant  preachers  went 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  9 1 

from  settlement  to  settlement,  yes  from  house  to  house, 
preaching  a  free  Gospel,  proclaiming  that  salvation  is  "  fully, 
freely,  and  sincerely  offered  to  all  men  upon  the  sole  con- 
dition of  repentance  toward  God  and  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ." 

As  regards  the  third  point:  that  experimental  reUgion, 
by  which  was  meant  what  would  now  be  called  the  religion 
of  experience,  or  emotional  as  distinguished  from  intellectual 
religion,  was  at  low  ebb  in  this  country,  as  in  England,  dur- 
ing the  eighteenth  century  can  hardly  be  doubted.  True, 
there  was  here  the  Great  Awakening,  as  in  England  there 
were  the  Wesley  an  movement  and  the  Evangelical  revival, 
but  both  here  and  there  the  Estabhshment  was  unmoved 
save  to  hostility.  In  this  country  the  successors  of  Edwards 
showed  much  evangelistic  fervor,  especially  under  the  moral 
government  theory  of  the  atonement,  which  warranted  the 
proclamation  of  a  free  Gospel  only  theoretically  hampered 
by  the  doctrine  of  election;  but  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Con- 
gregational clergy,  particularly  on  the  country-side,  droned 
the  pulpit  hours  away  in  most  tedious  fashion.  Oft-threshed 
straw  is  poor  fodder  for  man  or  beast.  One  who  for  his  sins, 
or  his  students,  is  compelled  to  wade  through  the  sermons 
of  the  period,  —  no,  wade  is  not  the  word,  for  that  suggests 
moisture,  of  which  there  is  hardly  a  trace  in  the  Sahara  of 
dryness,  —  emerges  from  his  wearisome  task  with  genuine 
compassion  for  those  who  had  to  listen  and  could  not  skip 
save  in  moments  when  nature's  sweet  restorer  gave  tem- 
porary relief  from  the  doctrines  of  grace.  To  use  Dr. 
Holmes's  figure,  the  sermons  were  like  Passover  bread,  holy 
but  heavy.  The  preachers  were  Uke  that  hapless  clergyman 
on  the  snowy  day  in  the  Concord  meeting-house  of  whom 
Emerson  writes : 

The  snowstorm  was  real,  the  preacher  merely  spectral,  and  the 
eye  felt  the  sad  contrast  in  looking  at  him,  and  then  out  of  the  window 


92  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

behind  him  into  the  beautiful  meteor  of  the  snow.  He  had  lived  in 
vain.  He  had  no  one  word  intimating  that  he  had  laughed  or  wept, 
was  married  or  in  love,  had  been  commended,  or  cheated,  or  chagrined. 
If  he  had  ever  lived  and  acted,  we  were  none  the  wiser  for  it.  The 
capital  secret  of  his  profession,  namely,  to  convert  life  into  truth,  he 
had  not  learned.  Not  one  fact  in  all  his  experience  had  he  yet  im- 
ported into  his  doctrine.  This  man  had  ploughed  and  planted  and 
talked  and  bought  and  sold;  he  had  read  books;  he  had  eaten  and 
drunken;  his  head  aches,  his  heart  throbs;  he  smiles,  and  suffers; 
yet  was  there  not  a  surmise,  a  hint,  in  all  the  discourse  that  he  had 
ever  lived  at  all.  Not  a  line  did  he  draw  out  of  real  history.  The 
true  preacher  can  be  known  by  this,  that  he  deals  out  to  the  people 
his  life,  —  life  passed  through  the  fire  of  thought.  But  of  the  bad 
preacher,  it  could  not  be  told  from  his  sermon  what  age  of  the  world 
he  fell  in;  whether  he  had  a  father  or  a  child;  whether  he  was  a  free- 
holder or  a  pauper;  whether  he  was  a  citizen  or  a  countryman;  or 
any  other  fact  of  his  biography.  It  seemed  strange  that  the  people 
should  come  to  church. 

Although  Emerson  was  writing  of  a  Unitarian  clergyman 
in  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  his  descrip- 
tion is  true  to  the  ordinary  preaching  in  the  pulpits  of  the 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  throughout  New 
England.  Of  course,  there  were  radiant  exceptions,  but  they 
shine  out  against  a  background  of  gloom.  There  are  many 
obvious  reasons  for  this,  such  as  the  diversion  of  interest 
on  account  of  war,  the  example  and  influence  of  the  mother 
country,  the  dread  of  enthusiasm  accentuated  by  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  Great  Awakening,  the  haunting  feeling  derived 
from  Calvinistic  theology  of  the  f utiUty  of  preaching  save  for 
the  edification  of  the  regenerate, — but  the  country  folk  often 
attributed  it  to  the  over- education  of  the  minister.  "  The 
Lord  eddicates  his  own  preachers."  It  is  said  that  of  the 
two  hundred  and  seventy-one  Congregational  preachers  in 
Massachusetts,  in  1776,  there  were  but  three  who  had  not 
received  a  college  education,  and  according  to  rustic  logic 
sapless  preaching  was  the   result.     Doubtless   some  here 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  93 

present  recall  the  "  pennyrial  hymns  "  sung  years  ago  in 
neighborhood  meetings  —  why  they  were  called  pennyrial 
nobody  seems  to  know,  but  perhaps  it  was  because  of  their 
homely  savoriness  —  and  with  the  "  pennyrial  hymns  " 
went  pennyroyal  preaching.  And  the  people  Hked  it,  al- 
though it  had  to  do  almost  exclusively  with  the  need  and 
the  way  of  salvation.  Some  ten  years  ago,  I  chanced  to 
meet  the  Rev.  Charles  G.  Ames  on  Boston  Common  and  as 
we  walked  on  together,  remembering  that  he  had  begun 
his  career  as  a  Free  Will  Baptist  preacher,  I  remarked  that 
I  had  just  been  reading  the  life  of  an  old  friend  of  his,  David 
Marks.  Mr.  Ames  stopped  short  and  stared  at  me  as  if  he 
were  gazing  down  an  interminable  vista  of  years — "You 
reading  the  life  of  David  Marks !  Why  I  set  up  the  type  of 
that  book  in  the  old  Morning  Star  ofhce  in  Dover!  Yes," 
he  continued,  meditatively,  "  I  remember  hearing  David 
Marks  preach.  There  was  a  big  crowd  and  he  began  very 
slowly  and  solemnly,  '  Fifty  years  hence  all  of  us  will  be  in 
eternity  —  where  ?  '  "  That  Mr.  Ames  remembered  the 
words  is  significant;  probably  most  of  those  who  heard 
them  did. 

The  need  of  salvation  because  of  the  nearness  of  death,  the 
certainty  of  judgment,  and  the  agonies  of  hell,  upon  this 
the  preachers  dwelt  with  morbid  insistence.  It  is  hard  for 
us  to  realize  the  terrible  oppression  of  the  human  heart  and 
mind  under  such  gloomy  teachings.  And  what  is  worse, 
even  little  children  were  forced  to  Hve  in  the  sombre  shadows. 
Of  course  they  could  not  help  being  more  familiar  with  death 
than  children  are  nowadays.  The  large  families  and  high 
mortality,  the  small  and  crowded  houses  which  made  death- 
bed scenes  unavoidable  —  these  tended  to  accustom  chil- 
dren to  the  valley  of  the  shadow.  But  there  was  more  than 
this,  more  than  this,  for,  in  order  to  give  them  a  realizing 
sense  of  death  and  doom,  parents  made  the  most  of  the  actual 


94  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

occurrence  of  death  and  kept  its  certain  coming  before  the 
minds  even  of  httle  children.  The  same  David  Marks  of 
whom  I  was  speaking  a  moment  ago  gives  us  a  typical 
example  of  this: 

As  early  as  I  was  susceptible  of  instruction  and  capable  of  reflec- 
tion, the  truth  that  all  must  die,  and  appear  before  God  to  account 
for  their  actions,  was  solemnly  impressed  on  my  mind.  At  the  age 
of  four  years,  a  sense  of  death  and  judgment  caused  awful  feelings  to 
pervade  my  soul;  particularly  one  day,  when  I  was  alone,  amusing 
myself  with  burning  the  tow  of  flax,  the  dreadful  agony  of  the  wicked 
in  hell  represented  in  the  Word  of  God  as  burning  with  unquenchable 
fire  was  instantly  brought  to  mind.  Looking  into  the  flame,  I  thought 
how  exceedingly  dreadful  even  one  moment  would  be  in  this  fierce 
burning;  then  turning  my  eyes  towards  the  heavens,  I  said  within 
myself,  how  will  my  soul  endure  if  yet  in  sin,  at  the  great  Judgment 
Day,  when  God  shall  appear  and  set  the  world  on  fire  ?  Finally  I 
concluded  that  I  would  descend  into  a  well  when  that  period  should 
arrive,  and  going  immediately  to  my  mother,  told  her  my  resolution. 
Ah,  my  son,  said  she,  the  water  will  boil  and  the  earth  will  burn.  An- 
other expedient  was  suggested.  I  thought  I  would  hew  out  a  place  of 
retreat  in  a  rock  and  there  hide  myself,  closing  the  entrance.  On 
naming  this  she  replied.  But  the  rocks  will  melt.  My  sorrows  increased, 
but  on  reflection  I  hoped  ere  that  time  should  come,  life  might  be 
ended  and  my  body  buried  in  the  earth;  so,  telling  my  mother  I 
hoped  by  this  to  escape,  she  said  —  My  child  your  hope  is  vain,  for 
the  dead  will  awake  and  come  out  of  their  graves.  My  last  expedient 
it  now  appeared  would  fail;  and  retiring  to  a  field  my  anguish  became 
great,  while  reflecting  that  my  parents  were  Christians  but  I  was  a 
sinner;  tears  flowed  profusely,  and  puttmg  my  hand  on  my  bosom,  I 
cast  my  eye  toward  heaven  and  said,  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner. 
Now  existence  was  a  burden;  the  burning  of  the  tow  recurred  to  mind, 
and  I  earnestly  wished  that  I  was  something  inanimate,  even  if  it  were 
tow,  that  I  might  not  feel  the  vengeance  that  would  fall  upon  the 
wicked.  Once  as  my  mother  laid  me  down  to  rest,  she  said.  Soon  my 
son,  you  will  exchange  the  bed  for  a  grave  and  your  clothes  for  a 
winding  sheet.  Often  after  this  when  I  lay  down  at  night,  my  bed 
reminded  me  of  the  grave  and  my  sheets  of  the  grave  apparel.  Serious 
thoughts  of  death  and  judgment  continued  to  exercise  my  infant 
powers. 


POPULAR  MOVEMENTS  95 

Little  wonder  that  when  at  the  age  of  fifteen  David 
Marks  left  his  home  to  take  up  the  life  of  a  travelling 
preacher,  he  frequently  began  his  sermon  with  the  solemn 
repetition  of  three  words:  Death,  Judgment,  Eternity — 
a  practice  which,  in  substance,  as  Mr.  Ames  was  witness, 
continued  through  his  life.  One  wishes  that  David  Marks 
were  an  exception,  but  the  biographies  of  his  coadjutors  in 
the  field  contradict  the  wish.  They  were  blood-curdling 
preachers  dealing  out  horrors  with  a  lavish  hand.  Natu- 
rally their  hearers  got  the  thrills  which  they  usually  failed  to 
get  in  the  village  meeting-house,  where  similar  doctrine  was 
taught  but  not  in  so  pungent  a  way. 

There  was,  however,  in  the  conventicle  one  vast  improve- 
ment upon  the  meeting-house  —  the  former  opened  a  way 
of  escape  which  the  latter  hardly  knew.  What  must  I  do 
to  be  saved  ?  When  an  aroused  penitent  put  this  question 
to  the  college-trained,  village  minister,  what  was  the  reply  ? 
What  could  it  be  on  Calvinistic  premises  according  to  which 
man  can  do  absolutely  nothing  towards  his  own  salvation 
lest  his  merit  should  detract  from  the  fulness  of  God's  glory  ? 
The  best  that  could  be  said  was  that  his  penitent  frame  was 
evidence  that  God's  spirit  was  working  within  him  and 
would  carry  the  work  forward  to  perfection  provided  he  were 
of  the  elect.  But  this  must  have  been  depressing  counsel. 
The  travelling  preacher,  however,  was  not  bafiled  —  there 
was  something  for  the  penitent  to  do,  ask  for  prayers,  come 
to  the  anxious  seat,  forgive  your  neighbor  the  wrong  he  has 
done  you,  make  a  complete  surrender  to  Christ  and  signalize 
your  consecration  by  baptism  and  a  way  of  life  eschewing 
cards,  dancing,  and  worldly  frolics  in  favor  of  sober  and 
solemn  thoughts  concerning  death  and  hell. 

Naturally,  the  conventicles  often  became  scenes  of  mad- 
ness. We  read  of  meetings  lasting  through  the  night  in 
which  men  and  women  fell  to  the  floor,  sometimes  dumb 


96  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  rigid,  sometimes  writhing  and  shrieking  in  agony,  of 
visions,  and  prophecies,  and  the  like;  but  the  more  experi- 
enced of  the  preachers  grew  suspicious  of  such  demonstra- 
tions and  were  disposed  to  discourage  them.  And  one  must 
never  forget  that  notwithstanding  regrettable  extravagancies 
and  the  wholesale  dispensation  of  terrors  there  was  real  life 
in  it  all,  life  protesting  against  the  hard  conventionahty  of 
the  standing  order  and  its  hopeless  Calvinism.  The  guerilla 
warfare  was  crude  but  effective.  Yet,  contemporaneously, 
there  was  going  on  a  movement  within  the  standing  order 
of  a  totally  different  character,  organized  and  academic,  of 
which  we  shall  have  to  speak  in  the  next  two  lectures  upon 
the  Unitarians. 


II.    THE   UNITARIANS 


In  the  course  of  the  last  lecture,  it  was  incidentally  observed 
that  Christians  were  suspected  of  dallying  with  the  Uberal 
party  of  the  standing  order,  afterwards  called  Unitarians, 
although  in  fact  there  were  no  relations  between  them.  Yet 
the  suspicion  was  natural,  for  in  some  respects  the  two 
groups  closely  resembled  each  other.  The  Liberals  studiously 
ignored  or  plumply  denied  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and 
Christians  fought  shy  of  the  word  as  unscriptural.  Jones 
and  his  followers  held  that  in  some  way  the  death  of  Christ 
availed  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  so  did  most  of  the 
Liberals,  yet  neither  party  was  disposed  to  speculate,  still 
less  to  dogmatize,  concerning  the  why  and  the  wherefore. 
Both  were  severe  against  "  man-made  "  formularies  and 
pointed  to  the  Bible  as  their  sole  and  sufficient  creed.  If 
Christians  renounced  party  names,  the  Liberals  objected 
stoutly  to  a  new  denominational  distinction  and  afterwards 
aimed  to  be,  and  boasted  that  they  were,  a  non-sectarian 
sect.  And  yet  with  all  these  points  of  similarity,  I  should 
be  exceedingly  surprised  to  learn  that  either  Freeman  or 
Channing  ever  visited  either  of  the  halls,  or,  afterwards,  the 
little  chapel  at  the  corner  of  Summer  and  Sea  Streets,  where 
the  Christians  worshipped,  or  so  much  as  knew  Abner  Jones 
by  sight. 

The  reasons  are  obvious,  if  not  wholly  creditable  to  the 
Liberals.  For  one  thing,  theirs  was  an  academic  movement 
and  carried  the  Harvard  stamp.  Appended  to  John  Wilson's 
Elegy  on  John  Harvard,  preserved  in  Cotton  Mather's 
Magnolia,  is  a  quotation  from  one  of  Arrowsmith's  Anti- 
WeigeHan  Orations,  applied  to  Harvard  College,  which  prays 
that  it  may  be  "so  tenacious  of  the  truth  that  it  shall  be 


98  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

easier  to  find  a  wolf  in  England  or  a  snake  in  Ireland  than  a 
Socinian  or  Arminian  in  Cambridge,"  and  could  the  particular 
faith  of  the  Mathers  have  prevailed,  the  prayer  would  have 
been  answered.  But  even  while  Increase  Mather  was  nomi- 
nally President  of  the  College,  his  frequent  absences  threw 
its  management  into  the  hands  of  Leverett  and  Brattle,  who 
represented  a  progressive  tendency,  and  from  that  time  on, 
the  College  developed  away  from  the  creed  of  its  founders 
until  it  became  a  veritable  breeding-place  of  Arminians  and 
Massachusetts  "  Liberals."  All  of  the  ministers  of  the  party, 
and  many  of  its  laymen  too,  were  graduates  of  Harvard,  and 
the  CoUege  was  governed  by  men  who  sat  on  Sunday  in  the 
pews,  or  stood  in  the  pulpits,  of  Liberal  churches.  The 
wealth  and  respectability  and  culture  of  Boston  were  with 
them.  The  Christians,  on  the  other  hand,  were  obscure  and 
humble  laboring  folk  and  their  preachers  carried  no  academic 
degrees.  It  was  distinctly  a  popular,  as  Unitarianism  was 
an  aristocratic  and  academic  movement  —  they  were  in 
different  orbits  which  never  intersected.  Another  reason  is 
that  the  Christians  were  opposed  to  the  standing  order, 
while  the  liberals  stood  inside  it,  fully  approving.  It  is  true 
that  the  latter  were  not  in  sympathy  with  the  traditional 
theology,  yet  they  were  strong  for  the  tradition  of  Congre- 
gationalism as  a  form  of  church  polity,  and  saw  no  reason 
why  Trinitarians  and  non-Trinitarians  might  not  worship 
together  in  its  free  fellowship.  They  had  no  wish  to  be 
come-outers,  and  I  suppose  it  was  undoubtedly  for  this 
reason  among  others  that  they  consorted  not  with  the 
Christians. 

What  has  just  been  said  partly  explains  a  fact  which 
puzzles  a  visitor  to  New  England,  in  case  he  be  interested  in 
religious  matters,  namely  that  many  of  the  "  First  Churches  " 
hereabouts  are  Unitarian.  In  most  cases  they  do  not  bear 
the  name  save  perhaps  in  inconspicuous  letters  on  the  sign- 


THE  UNITARIANS  99 

board,  sometimes  they  call  themselves  simply  the  First 
Church,  or  even  the  Congregational  Church,  of  the  town,  but 
they  are  Unitarian  nevertheless  in  denominational  affiliation. 
How  has  this  come  to  pass,  asks  a  curious  visitor,  that  the 
oldest  churches  are  homes  of  one  of  the  most  recent  heresies  ? 
To  answer  this  inquiry  is  the  purpose  of  today's  lecture. 

With  the  exception  of  King's  Chapel,  the  history  of  which 
begins  in  Episcopalianism,  all  the  early  Unitarian  churches  in 
New  England  belonged  originally  to  the  standing  order  and 
developed  within  it.  The  story  of  King's  Chapel  has  been 
so  fully  and  admirably  told  by  the  Rev.  Henry  W.  Foote, 
a  former  minister,  in  his  Annals  of  King's  Chapel  and  is  so 
well  known,  that  it  need  not  concern  us  at  present.  We 
shall  restrict  ourselves  therefore  to  the  Unitarian  churches 
which  have  their  beginnings  in  ancient  Congregationalism, 
and  waive  also  the  recondite  and  intricate  question  as  to 
the  earliest  representatives  of  the  "  heresy,"  for  indeed  the 
growth  was  very  gradual,  continuing  through  two  or  even 
three  generations,  and  the  break  when  it  occurred  was  one 
of  the  "  critical  points  in  the  continuity  of  natural  phenom- 
ena" —  to  borrow  Professor  Shaler's  feUcitous  phrase.  In 
many  cases,  as  for  example  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  there 
was  no  sharp  break  at  all  and  the  original  covenant  of  the 
church,  like  that  of  many  another  of  the  earhest  churches,  was 
so  broad  and  untheological  in  character — a  covenant  of  life 
purpose  and  not  a  creed  —  that  it  has  been  retained  unal- 
tered and  unabridged  even  to  this  day.  In  so  slow  a  process, 
therefore,  it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  fix  beginnings,  and 
our  best  course  is  to  take  up  the  story  at  some  definite 
pdint  where  the  differences  are  clearly  recognizable.  To  go 
no  farther  back,  then,  than  the  beginning  of  the  last  century, 
we  find  at  that  time  three  pretty  distinctly  marked  parties 
in  the  standing  order  of  New  England.  By  far  the  largest 
of  the  three  was  the  group  of  Moderate  Calvinists  who  held 


lOO  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  a  vaguely  mitigated  Calvinism.  God  was  sovereign,  but 
to  some  extent  and  in  some  way  man  was  somehow  free  and 
responsible.  Regeneration  was  by  an  immediate  act  of  the 
Spirit  as  the  pure  effect  of  God's  free  grace,  but  it  was  well 
for  man  to  avail  himself  of  the  means  of  grace,  go  to  church, 
read  his  Bible,  and  pray,  yes,  perhaps  even  attend  the  Com- 
munion, so  that,  at  least,  the  Spirit  would  not  have  to  travel 
far  afield  on  his  regenerating  errand.  Of  course,  here  was 
palpable  inconsistency,  but  the  Moderates  did  not  know  it, 
or,  if  they  knew  it,  did  not  care.  But  there  was  a  party 
composing  the  right  wing  of  Congregationalism  who  did 
know  and  care.  As  they  rightly  reasoned.  What  is  the  use 
of  being  Calvinists  at  all  unless  thorough's  the  word  ?  So 
they,  Edwards  and  his  adherents,  called  themselves  "Con- 
sistent Calvinists,"  fearlessly  pushing  constructive  principles 
to  their  extreme  logical  issues.  God's  absolute  sovereignty 
in  election  and  reprobation,  man's  helplessness  and  total 
moral  inabihty  on  account  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  —  to  these 
doctrines,  and  their  logical  corollaries  and  consequences, 
they  consistently  adhered.  Two  things,  however,  they  held 
for  which  we  may  properly  magnify  them:  the  first  was  a 
moral  government  theory  of  the  Atonement  which  theoreti- 
cally, at  least,  opened  to  all  mankind  the  benefits  of  the 
death  of  Christ  while  at  the  same  time  robbing  Universalism, 
as  it  then  was,  of  its  most  cogent  plea.  The  second,  of  in- 
definitely greater  significance,  was  a  moral  ideal  of  surpass- 
ing grandeur.  Edwards  is  popularly  known  as  the  preacher 
of  almost  incredibly  cruel  hell-fire  sermons,  or,  among 
philosophers,  as  author  of  a  book  on  the  Will  which  is  more 
often  praised  than  read,  but  his  powerful  claim  upon  the 
honorable  memory  of  mankind  lies  in  the  surpassing  moral 
ideal  contained  in  his  treatise  "  On  the  Nature  of  True 
Virtue."  Perceiving  that  an  act  gets  its  moral  quality 
from  the  motive  that  inspires  it,  or  more  accurately  from  the 


THE  UNITARIANS  lOI 

attitude  and  spirit  it  betokens,  Edwards  taught  that  true 
virtue  consists  only  in  love  to  Being  in  general,  or,  specifi- 
cally, to  God  considered  either  as  the  sum  of  all  Being  or  as 
containing  within  himself  the  largest  amount  of  Being  in 
the  whole  universe,  and  since  no  one  could  have  this  love 
unless  born  of  God  by  the  regenerating  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  it  follows  that  no  unregenerate  man  can  have  true 
virtue  or  do  anything  in  the  way  of  good  works  towards  his 
own  salvation.  Before  such  a  lofty  ideal  as  this,  how  shabby 
and  contemptible  appeared  the  morals  of  the  Moderates 
and  how  thoroughly  consistent  is  the  doctrine  that  salvation 
can  be  only  of  God's  sovereign  grace.  It  was  this  moral 
ideal  which  afterwards  was  pointedly  expressed  in  the  in- 
quiry —  Are  you  willing  to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God  ? 
which  probed  to  the  very  depths  of  a  man's  soul.  What  it 
really  meant  was,  whether  a  man  did  love  God  so  supremely 
that  supposing  God  had  decreed  he  should  be  among  those 
useful  only  in  their  damnation,  he  would  rejoice  even  thus 
to  show  forth  His  glory.  Of  course  the  fallacy  is  that  when  a 
man  had  arrived  at  the  point  where  he  felt  willing  to  make 
this  ultimate  sacrifice  he  could  feel  reasonably  certain  that 
it  would  not  be  required  of  him,  but,  even  so,  behind  the 
question  lay  the  most  exalted  moral  ideal  ever  conceived  by 
the  mind  of  man.  Such  then  were  the  Hopkinsians  or  Con- 
sistent Calvinists,  logical,  enthusiastic,  aggressive,  who  com- 
posed the  right  wing  of  New  England  Congregationalism. 
Then  there  was  the  left  wing,  the  Liberals,  who  also  took 
Calvinism  seriously  and  logically,  and  deliberately  rejected 
it.  Thorough's  the  word,  on  the  left  as  on  the  right.  In  fact 
both  wings  pushed  out  simultaneously  and  each  stimulated 
the  growth  of  the  other.  This  is  no  time  or  place  for  a  state- 
ment as  to  how  these  Liberals  came  to  their  radical  views :  — 
doubtless  the  English  influence  during  the  prerevolutionary 
period,  proceeding  from  Deistic  authors  as  well  as  from 


102  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

churchmen  like  Tillotson,  was  in  part  responsible;  perhaps 
afterwards  the  French  influence  helped;  probably  the 
broadening  effect  of  foreign  commerce  contributed;  but 
the  important  fact  is  that  there  the  Liberals  were,  on  the 
left  of  CongregationaKsm,  certainly  not  Calvinists,  and  with 
equal  certainty  quite  unwilling  to  be  called  Unitarians. 
And  this  not  as  seeking  to  conceal  their  real  opinions,  —  of 
whom  or  what  can  they  have  been  afraid,  save  of  a  schism  in 
the  ancient  order,  which  they  did  indeed  honorably  dread, — 
but  because  in  truth  they  were  not  Unitarians  according  to 
the  usual  connotation  of  that  term  both  here  and  in  England. 
In  that  they  beUeved  in  the  divine  unity,  they  were  Uni- 
tarians, but  so  were  Jews  and  Mohammedans;  yet,  unlike 
most  English  Unitarians,  they  were  not  necessitarians, 
religious  materialists,  or  Socinians,  nor  did  they  share  the 
pohtical  opinions  generally  characteristic  of  the  group. 
Upon  this  point,  however,  more  must  be  said  in  the  next 
lecture  —  at  present  it  is  sufficient  to  present  this  group  of 
Liberals  as  the  left  wing  of  Congregationalism. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century  —  there  were  these  strongly  marked  differences 
with  possibility  of  division,  but  in  that  event  it  was  by  no 
means  clear  where  the  line  of  cleavage  would  run  —  would 
the  Moderates  ally  themselves  with  the  Hopkinsians  or  the 
Liberals  ?  Two  events  answered  the  question.  The  elec- 
tion of  Henry  Ware  as  Mollis  Professor  of  Divinity  in 
Harvard  College  was  one,  and  the  founding  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary  was  the  other.  The  former  aligned 
Moderates  in  opposition  to  the  Liberals  and  the  latter  sig- 
nalized the  union  of  Hopkinsians  and  Moderates.  So  the 
line  was  drawn  and  the  Liberals  were  on  the  lonely  side  of  it. 
The  result  was  that  notwithstanding  earnest  protestations 
and  pleas  on  the  part  of  the  Liberals,  the  old  Congrega- 
tional order  was  split  asunder  and  the  Liberals  were  com- 


THE  UNITARIANS  IO3 

pelled  to  organize  for  mutual  fellowship  and  support. 
Inevitably  there  was  bad  feeling  on  both  sides.  It  has 
frequently  been  observed  that  there  is  no  rancor  like  that 
between  theological  opponents  who  fight  for  the  glory  of 
God  as  if  the  very  devil  were  in  them.  In  general,  this  is 
probably  owing  to  the  fact  that  religious  interests  are  very 
deep,  lying  near  the  inmost  springs  of  feeling  and  hence 
bringing  out,  when  aroused,  the  essential  natures  of  men. 
In  a  little  book  on  Oliver  Cromwell,  Frederic  Harrison  has 
a  keen  analysis  of  Puritan  character  under  Puritan  theology 
in  which  he  says:  "  It  depended  very  much  on  the  zealot's 
own  nature  whether  the  result  was  good  or  bad.  A  great  and 
wise  man  had  his  greatness  and  his  sagacity  intensified,  for 
his  own  soul  was  transfigured  to  himself.  A  man  of  self- 
reliance  had  his  will  heated  to  a  white  heat,  for  he  knew 
himself  to  be  the  chosen  instrument  to  work  out  the  decrees 
of  the  Almighty.  And  so  the  self-sufficient  man  treated  all 
who  opposed  him  as  the  enemies  of  God.  It  was  a  form  of 
belief  which  could  bring  out  all  the  good  and  all  the  evil  of 
the  heart."  What  is  here  said  of  Puritanism  is  equally  true 
of  religion  in  general,  when  living  and  momentous.  The 
zealot  identifies  his  cause  with  the  divine  will  and  so 
becomes  resolute  and  relentless,  counting  his  opponents 
wickedly  hostile  to  God  and  hating  them  accordingly.  Con- 
sequently, notwithstanding  the  high  character  of  the  men 
involved  in  this  New  England  controversy,  the  very  fact 
that  it  concerned  religion,  which  was  on  both  sides  a  deep 
and  commanding  interest,  elicited  powerful  feelings  which 
were  often  unjust  and  uncharitable  and  hence  of  course 
unchristian.  Besides,  there  were  exacerbating  elements  in 
the  situation  which  sharpened  general,  into  keenly  personal, 
feeling. 

While  the  election  of  a  Hollis  Professor  of  Divinity  in 
Harvard  College  was  pending,  Professor  Eliphalet  Pearson, 


I04  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

then  acting  President  of  the  College,  stoutly  maintained  in 
the  Corporation,  as  the  Rev.  Jedidiah  Morse,  a  graduate  of 
Yale,  and  minister  of  the  First  Church  of  Charlestown,  did 
in  the  Board  of  Overseers,  that  the  terms  of  the  HoUis  en- 
dowment required  that  the  incumbent  should  be  a  Calvinist. 
Into  the  merits  of  the  contention  it  is  not  for  us  to  enter. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  opinion  did  not  prevail  in  the 
governing  boards,  and  Henry  Ware  of  Hingham,  one  of  the 
Liberals,  was  elected.  Shortly  afterwards,  in  May,  1806, 
Dr.  Webber  was  chosen  president.  Whereupon  Professor 
Pearson,  an  opposing  candidate,  resigned  his  professor- 
ship, and  shortly  afterwards  withdrew  to  Andover,  where 
he  took  the  lead  in  founding  Andover  Theological  Sem- 
inary. Dr.  Morse,  who  had  been  the  foremost  opponent 
of  Dr.  Ware  in  the  Board  of  Overseers,  seems  to  have  been 
rather  credulous  and  suspicious,  with  perhaps  a  trace  of 
what  in  anybody  but  a  minister  might  be  called  cantanker- 
ousness  in  his  disposition.  Unhappily  he  became  involved 
in  a  literary  squabble  of  almost  incredible  pettiness,  which, 
however,  greatly  embittered  him.  There  was  in  Boston  a 
certain  Hannah  Adams,  a  literary  lady  of  very  local  and 
temporary  renown,  who  pubhshed  in  1799,  a  History  of  New 
England,  which  she  proposed  afterwards  to  abridge  and  pub- 
lish in  less  expensive  form.  Before  she  could  do  this,  how- 
ever, Dr.  Morse  and  Dr.  Parish  brought  out  a  Compendious 
History  of  New  England,  which  was  briefer  and  less  expen- 
sive than  Miss  Adams's  original  history,  and  was  regarded 
as  an  attempt  to  forestall  the  market  for  her  intended 
abridgement.  In  addition,  there  were  vague  accusations 
that  her  earlier  work  had  been  improperly  used,  plagiarized 
in  fact,  by  the  reverend  authors  of  the  Compendious  History. 
As  it  happened  Miss  Adams  had  many  friends  among  the 
Liberals  of  Boston  who  took  up  her  cause,  and  for  ten  years 
a  tempest  raged  in  the  tea-pot.    All  this  is  of  no  importance 


THE  UNITARIANS  IO5 

now  save  for  the  effect  it  produced  upon  Dr.  Morse.  He 
believed,  doubtless  with  perfect  sincerity,  that  the  whole 
controversy  had  as  its  efficient  cause  a  desire  on  the  part  of 
the  Liberals  to  punish  him  for  the  decided  stand  which  he 
had  felt  himself  bound  to  take  "  against  (to  quote  his  own 
words)  that  powerful  and  overbearing  influence  which  was 
exerted  in  effecting  the  election  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ware  to  his 
present  office,  and  which  has  operated  since  in  completing 
an  important  revolution  in  the  religious  character  of  that 
ancient  and  venerable  institution."  It  matters  not  whether 
this  view  was  correct  or  not,  certainly  he  entertained  it  as 
a  settled  conviction,  and  its  effect  upon  his  feeling  depended 
upon  his  belief  of  the  fact  rather  than  upon  the  fact  itself. 
Dr.  Morse  must  have  been  uncomfortable  in  Charlestown, 
a  Yale  man  not  theologically  sympathetic  with  the  neigh- 
boring Harvard  ministers,  and  deeply  distressed  by  the  signs 
of  theological  change  which  he  saw  all  around  him  —  and 
then  this  attack  upon  his  reputation  which  he  believed  to 
be  inspired  by  theological  animosity  —  what  wonder  if  he 
lost  his  head  and  let  bitterness  into  his  heart ! 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  part  taken  by  personal 
feeling  in  the  case  of  Pearson  and  Morse,  the  mass  of  the 
clergy  and  laity  were  little  affected  by  such  trivial  matters. 
And  there  was  abundant  occasion  for  profounder  feeling. 
Harvard  College  was  founded  to  provide  a  supply  of  learned 
ministers  for  the  churches,  and  for  a  century  and  a  haff  it 
had  admirably  discharged  that  function.  But  it  appeared 
that  the  College  which  had  held  the  loyalty  of  all,  to  the 
funds  of  which  pious  souls  had  contributed,  some  out  of 
their  sufficiency,  others  out  of  penury,  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  a  party  who  were  determined  to  make  it  a  training 
school  of  ministers  out  of  harmony  with  the  theological  past 
and  doctrines  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  contemporary  religious 
life  of  New  England.    So  religious  feeling  was  outraged  and 


Io6  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

bad  blood  was  stirred  up.  Epithets  were  bandied  back  and 
forth.  The  Liberals  no  more  liked  to  be  called  infidels  than 
their  opponents  would  have  liked  to  be  called  fools.  Neither 
side  had  a  monopoly  of  piety  or  intelligence.  Of  course 
it  was  cruelly  unjust  to  brand  high-minded  conscientious 
men,  such  as  composed  the  Liberal  party,  both  clerg}'men 
and  laymen,  with  deceit,  evasion,  and  hypocrisy,  and  re- 
sentment was  natural  on  both  sides.  To  call  bad  names 
always  stirs  up  bad  blood.  Epithets  are  the  epitaphs  of 
good  will.  But  the  ill  feeling  was  increased  and  consoKdated 
by  a  most  unfortunate  event  with  far-reaching  consequences 
—  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  controversy  which  found  its  legal 
settlement  in  the  famous  Dedham  Case. 

For  a  correct  understanding  of  this  crucial  point  it  is 
necessary  to  recall  the  history  of  the  relations  between  the 
church  on  the  one  hand  and  the  town,  precinct,  or  society 
on  the  other  with  respect  to  the  settling  of  ministers.  In 
colonial  times,  the  church  alone  was  authorized  to  call  and 
settle  a  minister  with  no  reference  whatever  to  the  other 
inhabitants  of  the  town,  all  of  whom,  however,  were  liable 
to  taxation  for  the  support  of  a  clergyman  in  whose  selection 
they  had  had  no  voice.  Of  course,  since  church  members 
alone  possessed  the  franchise,  others  had  no  right  to  vote 
in  any  of  the  affairs  of  the  town  and  were  expressly  forbidden 
by  colonial  law  to  meddle  with  ecclesiastical  matters.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  provincial  period,  after  the  religious 
qualification  for  voting  had  been  abohshed,  a  law  was  passed 
conferring  the  right  of  election  upon  the  to^vn,  but  this  was 
promptly  changed,  and  by  the  law  of  1693,  it  was  provided 
that  the  church  should  elect  the  minister  and,  when  its  choice 
should  be  concurred  in  by  the  town,  the  whole  town  should 
become  liable  for  his  support.  But  suppose  the  town  should 
not  concur  ?  This  was  provided  for  by  the  law  of  1695, 
which  decreed  that  in  case  of  such  disagreement  the  church 


THE  UNITARIANS  I07 

should  call  a  council:  if  its  decision  were  favorable  to  the 
church,  the  town  must  acquiesce;  if  unfavorable,  the  church 
must  proceed  to  a  new  selection.  Under  this  law,  the  prac- 
tice became  general,  although  not  universal,  of  electing  a 
minister  by  concurrent  vote,  the  church  taking  the  lead, 
although  occasionally  by  agreement  the  church  and  the 
town,  or  parish,  voted  together.  In  the  Bill  of  Rights,  how- 
ever, it  was  enacted  that  "  the  several  towns,  parishes,  pre- 
cincts, and  other  bodies  pohtic,  or  religious  societies,  shall, 
at  all  times,  have  the  exclusive  right  of  electing  their  public 
teachers  and  of  contracting  with  them  for  their  support  and 
maintenance."  By  the  Law  of  1799,  the  churches  were  con- 
firmed in  their  accustomed  privileges  respecting  divine  wor- 
ship, church  order,  and  discipline,  but  apparently  this 
provision  did  not  include  the  choice  of  minister,  which  re- 
mains where  it  was  left  by  the  Constitution  in  the  hands  of 
the  town  or  society.  This  was  a  most  extraordinary  provision, 
for  it  exactly  reversed  the  colonial  principle  and  allowed 
the  church  as  such  no  rights  whatsoever  in  the  selection  of 
a  minister.  It  has  been  suggested  by  high  authority  that 
the  phrasing  was  influenced  by  the  practice  of  Brattle  Street 
Church,  where  many  of  the  most  prominent  legislators  wor- 
shipped, which  had  long  been  accustomed  to  the  calling  of 
a  minister  by  church  and  parish  acting  together  as  one. 
However  this  may  be,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the 
full  import  of  the  law  was  apprehended  by  either  its  framers 
or  the  people  who  adopted  it.  In  fact,  examination  of  the 
law  in  connection  with  earlier  enactments,  and  the  provi- 
sions empowering  the  Legislature  to  require  the  towns  to 
provide  Gospel  privileges  and  to  enjoin  the  inhabitants  to 
attend  public  worship,  suggests  that  the  article  in  question 
was  intended  to  preclude  the  Legislature  from  imposing  a 
minister  of  its  own  choice  upon  the  town  (as  had  been 
possible  under  earlier  laws)  so  that  the  phrase  exclusive  right 


I08  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

was  intended  to  exclude  the  Legislature.  However  that 
may  be,  there  the  law  stood  subject  to  interpretation  by 
the  courts  should  occasion  arise. 

And  occasion  did  arise.  It  became  necessary  for  the  First 
Parish  and  Church  in  Dedham  to  procure  a  new  minister. 
The  society  elected  Mr.  Lamson,  whose  sympathies  were 
with  the  Liberals,  but  for  that  very  reason  the  church  was 
opposed.  Nevertheless  the  society,  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  a  council,  proceeded  to  ordain  Mr.  Lamson  as 
minister  of  the  church  and  parish.  Whereupon  the  majority 
of  the  church  seceded,  among  them  the  deacons  in  whose 
custody  was  certain  property  belonging  to  the  First  Church. 
I  say  the  majority  of  the  church  seceded,  because  that  was 
admitted  in  the  trial  as  a  matter  of  fact,  although  Dr.  Lam- 
son emphatically  affirmed  that  the  concession  was  made 
only  in  order  to  secure  a  decision  on  first  principles  and  that 
in  reality  it  was  a  minority  of  the  church  which  withdrew. 
Such  of  the  members  of  the  church  as  retained  their  con- 
nection with  the  parish  appointed  new  deacons,  who  sued 
their  predecessors,  still  claiming  to  be  deacons  of  the  First 
Church  in  Dedham,  to  recover  the  property  belonging  to 
the  church.  So  the  case  came  before  the  courts  and  was 
decided  by  an  opinion  rendered  at  the  October  term  (1820) 
of  the  Supreme  Court  by  Chief  Justice  Parker.  In  brief, 
the  opinion  was  as  follows.  The  property  of  the  church 
vests  in  the  deacons  of  the  church  to  be  used  for  the  support 
of  public  worship  in  the  town  or  parish  to  which  the  church 
belongs  whereof  they  are  deacons.  The  church,  being  an 
unincorporated  organization  and  incapable  of  existing  apart 
from  a  society,  must  be  identified  by  its  connection  with  a 
parish.  Hence,  the  First  Church  of  a  town  is  the  church 
which  is  in  connection  with  the  First  Parish.  The  Court 
even  went  so  far  as  to  hold  that  "as  to  all  civil  purposes, 
the  secession  of  a  whole  church  from  the  parish  would  be 


THE  UNITARIANS  IO9 

the  extinction  of  the  church,  and  it  is  competent  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  parish  to  institute  a  new  church  or  to  engraft 
one  upon  the  old  stock  if  any  of  it  should  remain,  and  this 
new  church  would  succeed  to  all  the  rights  of  the  old  in 
relation  to  the  parish."  Furthermore,  the  Court  held  that 
in  conformity  with  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  the  soci- 
ety was  wholly  within  its  rights  in  calling  and  settling  Mr. 
Lamson  without  regard  to  the  protest  of  the  church,  which 
had  no  rights  in  the  premises.  Thus,  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  was  wholly  in  favor  of  the  Liberals  and  by 
virtue  of  it  in  all  cases  where  church  and  society  disagreed 
in  the  choice  of  a  minister,  and  the  former  or  any  portion 
thereof  withdrew,  the  meeting-house  and  all  the  endow- 
ments of  the  church  remained  with  the  church  in  connection 
with  the  original  parish.  Hence  it  is  that  many  of  the  First 
Churches  in  New  England  are  now  in  Unitarian  fellowship. 

To  say  that  this  decision  provoked  a  storm  of  indignant 
protest  from  the  Conservative  party  would  be  putting  the 
case  quite  too  mildly.  But  its  worst  effect  was  to  bring  the 
bad  blood,  already  stirred,  to  the  boiling  point  of  wrath. 
The  Unitarians  who  fell  heir  to  the  property  of  the  ancient 
churches  were  accused  of  robbery  and  plunder.  As  a  boy 
in  one  of  the  Congregational  churches  in  Boston  I  used  to 
hear,  although  not  from  the  pulpit,  that  "  the  Unitarians 
stole  our  churches  "  and  it  was  not  until  many  years  after- 
ward that  I  learned  that  the  "  robbery  "  was  by  order  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  Commonwealth. 

Even  at  this  late  day,  it  takes  but  little  to  fan  the  embers 
of  outraged  feeling  into  a  hot  flame  of  resentment,  but  per- 
haps a  word  may  be  permitted  from  one  who  stands  far 
enough  removed  in  time  from  the  controversy  to  have  none 
of  the  original  feeling,  and  whose  early  prejudices  were 
wholly  with  the  conservative  side,  as  to  the  way  in  which 
the  old  dispute  appears  to  one,  at  least,  of  the  present  genera- 


no  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

tion.  That  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  legally 
sound  must  be  assumed.  It  would  be  presumptuous  for  a 
layman,  whether  Unitarian  or  Orthodox,  to  question  it. 
And  indeed  the  Constitution  was  perfectly  explicit  in  vesting 
the  society  alone  with  the  right  to  elect  a  minister.  But 
the  law  had  not  changed  the  usage,  which  continued  to  be 
as  it  had  been  for  more  than  a  centur}^,  that  the  church  took 
the  lead  in  electing,  leaving  the  parish  or  society  to  concur 
if  it  saw  fit.  The  practice  and  the  law  therefore  did  not  agree, 
but,  as  the  Court  pointed  out,  legal  questions  must  be  de- 
cided by  the  law  and  not  by  custom.  But  it  was  precisely 
that  conflict  between  law  and  custom  which  added  bitter- 
ness to  the  controversy.  Should  a  church  of  God's  elect 
have  its  minister  appointed  for  it  by  a  society  of  technical 
"  reprobates,"  in  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  was  not  and  who 
had  no  living  connection  with  the  great  Head  of  the  Church  ? 
Such  a  view  was  monstrous  in  the  eyes  of  piety.  No  wonder 
that  feeling  ran  hot  and  high.  And  let  me  frankly  say  that 
this  seems  to  me  just  one  of  the  cases  where  it  is  necessary 
to  distinguish  clearly  between  law  and  justice.  A  distin- 
guished Chicago  lawyer  once  remarked  to  me  that  the 
courts  are  not  an  agency  for  the  establishment  of  ideal 
justice,  but  are  simply  part  of  the  police  system  of  the  state 
for  the  settling  of  disputes.  Law  and  Justice  are  not  neces- 
sarily identical.  Of  course,  ideally  they  should  be,  and  in 
fact,  ordinarily,  substantial  justice  is  reached  on  legal  prin- 
ciples, but  frequently,  in  practice,  cases  arise  where  the  dis- 
tinction is  indispensable  if  one  would  honor  his  sense  of 
justice  on  the  one  hand  and  retain  his  respect  for  the  law  on 
the  other.  The  highest  sense  of  justice  in  a  community  is 
often  in  advance  of  legislation.  That  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  was  in  harmony  with  the  law,  as  the  law 
then  was,  must  be  conceded.  No  one  familiar  with  the  repu- 
tation and  character  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts 


THE  UNITARIANS  III 

can  for  a  moment  suppose  that  its  decision  was  affected 
by  the  theological  predilections  of  its  members,  whatever 
they  may  have  been.  But  one  may  grant  this  and  yet,  with 
all  respect  to  the  Court,  be  permitted  to  afhrm  that  its  de- 
cision does  not  seem  equitable,  particularly  in  view  of  the 
practice  which  had  prevailed  here  in  New  England,  both 
before  and  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  Yet,  one 
may  ask,  would  it  not  have  been  decent  and  honorable,  not- 
withstanding the  decision,  for  those  whom  it  favored  to 
make  fair  division  of  the  property  thus  put  into  their  hands 
and  share  proportionally  with  the  seceders  ?  Yes,  that 
would  have  been  just,  and  in  Dedham  if  the  seceders  from 
the  parish  who  held  the  property  had  made  such  a  propo- 
sition (so  far  as  I  can  ascertain  there  is  no  evidence  that 
they  did),  the  Unitarians  would  probably  have  been  willing 
to  accept  the  compromise  and  the  case  would  have  been 
kept  out  of  the  courts;  but,  since  the  funds  were  trust  funds, 
after  the  Court  had  decided  as  to  their  proper  trustees, 
would  it  then  have  been  lawful  to  put  them,  or  any  portion 
of  them,  into  the  hands  of  those  who  according  to  the  Court 
were  not  their  legal  custodians  ?  The  bitter  misfortune 
through  all  this  painful  controversy  is  that  the  case  was  per- 
mitted to  go  to  the  courts  at  all,  but  when  it  actually  came 
before  the  Court  it  of  course  had  to  be  settled  in  accordance 
with  law.  And  one  can  but  admire  the  splendid  loyalty  to 
conscience  which  inspired  the  conservatives  to  depart  from 
an  organization  which  they  deemed  hostile  to  the  Christian 
faith  and  accept  the  clearly  foreseen  consequences  entailed 
by  the  separation.  They  were  willing,  be  it  said  to  their 
glory,  to  forfeit  the  accumulations  of  years,  to  labor  and 
sacrifice  in  the  upbuilding  of  new  churches  which  should 
perpetuate  the  ancient  creed.  The  law  was  against  them, 
but  a  zeal  for  the  truth  as  they  saw  it  led  to  spiritual  results 
far  exceeding  their  material  loss. 


112  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

By  1825,  then,  the  Unitarians  were  well  established  in 
Boston  and  eastern  New  England,  with  some  churches  in 
the  interior  of  Massachusetts  which  looked  to  Harvard 
College  for  their  ministers.  But  on  the  whole  the  back  coun- 
try was  untouched  by  this  Unitarian  movement:  for  their 
ministers,  the  churches  had,  as  a  rule,  Moderate  Calvinists 
who  were  now  definitely  arrayed  against  the  Unitarians. 
But  at  this  very  time,  currents  of  population  were  setting 
towards  the  cities,  the  most  energetic  and  enterprising  young 
men  and  women  from  the  country  towns  began  to  stream 
into  Boston.  What  followed  may  be  told  best  in  the  words 
of  Theodore  Parker,  who  a  few  months  before  his  death 
wrote  thus : 

No  sect  had  ever  a  finer  opportunity  than  the  Unitarians  to  advance 
the  religious  development  of  a  people.  But  they  let  it  sUde,  and  now 
they  must  slide  with  it.  In  1838  the  Unitarians  were  the  controlling 
party  in  Boston:  the  railroads  were  just  getting  opened  and  it  was 
plain  the  Protestant  population  of  the  town  would  soon  double.  Young 
men  with  no  fortune  but  their  character  would  come  in  from  the  coun- 
try and  settle  and  grow  rich;  the  Unitarians  ought  to  have  welcomed 
such  to  their  churches;  to  have  provided  helps  for  them  and  secured 
them  to  the  Unitarian  fold.  Common  policy  would  suggest  that  course 
not  less  than  a  refined  humanity.  But  they  did  no  such  thing:  they 
loved  pecunia  pecuniata,  not  pecunia  pecunians.  They  were  aristo- 
crats and  exclusive  in  their  tastes,  not  democratic  and  inclusive.  So 
they  shoved  off  these  yoimg  comitry  fellows,  and  now  rejoice  in  their 
very  respectable  but  very  little  congregations.  The  South  of  Boston 
is  not  in  the  Unitarian  churches.  A  church  of  old  men  goes  to  its  grave, 
one  of  young  men  goes  to  its  work. 

In  the  main  Theodore  Parker  was  right.  The  newcomers 
into  the  city  brought  with  them  for  the  most  part  prejudices 
against  the  Unitarians  implanted  in  their  home  churches  on 
the  countryside,  and  there  was  no  attempt  to  remove  those 
prejudices  and  welcome  them  to  the  Unitarian  churches. 
Even  those  who  came  from  Unitarian  homes  in  the  back 


THE  UNITARIANS  II3 

country  found  their  warmest  welcome  here  in  orthodox 
churches.  One  speculates  sometimes  what  would  have 
happened,  for  example,  if  Dwight  L.  Moody,  coming  from 
a  Unitarian  home  and  church  in  Northfield,  had  been  re- 
ceived into  one  of  the  Unitarian  churches  of  Boston  as  he 
was  into  Mount  Vernon  Church,  although  his  reception  even 
there  cannot  be  called  exactly  cordial.  May  a  Boston  boy 
bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  in  the  seventies  neither  he  nor 
any  of  the  common  people  among  whom  he  lived  would 
have  presumed  to  enter  this  building  (King's  Chapel)  at 
the  time  of  worship,  any  more  than  he  would  have  had  the 
impudence  to  enter,  unbidden,  a  private  residence  on  Beacon 
Street.  I  do  not  say  that  this  feeling  was  just:  I  do  aver 
that  it  existed  as  an  inheritance  from  an  earlier  time.  And 
the  fact  is  that  on  the  whole  young  men  and  women  coming 
from  the  country  found  their  religious  homes  elsewhere 
than  among  the  Unitarians.  And  so  appears  a  striking 
anomaly.  The  Unitarians  were  liberal  in  theology  but  con- 
servative in  wellnigh  everything  else.  The  orthodox 
churches  were  filling  up  with  young  men  who  were  conserva- 
tive in  theology  but  progressive  in  almost  everything  else. 
That  does  not  put  the  case  quite  fairly  for,  theologically, 
the  Unitarians,  while  liberal,  were  not  progressive.  They 
believed  that  they  had  returned  to  the  oldest  and  purest* 
form  of  Christianity,  so  that  in  a  very  real  sense  they  held 
themselves  to  be,  theologically,  the  true  conservatives. 
They  believed  stoutly  in  divine  revelation,  especially  through 
Christ,  but  also  in  the  New  Testament,  and  indeed  in  the 
Bible  as  a  whole  when  correctly  interpreted;  they  had  no 
notion  of  progress  beyond  what  was  written,  especially  in 
the  words  of  Christ.  The  Unitarians  were  the  cult  of  the 
arrived,  but  in  orthodox  churches  filled  with  vigorous,  am- 
bitious, progressive  youth  from  the  countryside  there  was 
the  worship  of  pilgrims. 


1 14  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Into  the  further  history  of  the  Unitarians,  externally  con- 
sidered, I  do  not  care  now  to  enter.  In  addition  to  what  has 
been  said,  it  should  be  observed  that  the  material  progress 
of  their  churches  was  hindered  by  other  causes.  They 
were  Congregationalists  to  the  core  with  an  almost  morbid 
dread  of  ecclesiastical  domination  which  might  interfere 
with  individual  hberty,  hence  there  was  a  deeply  rooted 
prejudice  against  organization  and  central  control  even  of 
the  most  elementary  and  indispensable  kind,  which  has  per- 
sisted even  to  this  day  and  has  undoubtedly  hampered  their 
efficiency.  Furthermore,  this  same  respect  for  individual 
freedom  has  given  them  also  a  prejudice  against  what  is 
called  proselyting,  which  has  extended  to  missionary  work, 
home  as  well  as  foreign,  and  to  the  religious  education  of 
their  young  people.  This  has  given  rise  to  queer  misunder- 
standings. It  has  been  said,  for  example,  that  the  Unitarians 
have  no  confidence  in  their  own  religion,  else  they  would  be 
more  active  in  its  propagation,  since  one  who  knows  he  has 
a  good  thing  is  always  prompt  to  push  it.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, the  argument  should  run  in  precisely  the  opposite 
direction:  it  was  the  very  confidence  in  their  own  religious 
convictions  which  encouraged  the  Unitarians  to  believe 
that  they  would  make  their  way  by  their  own  reasonable- 
ness, and  this  because  they  trusted  so  fully  the  inherent 
reasonableness  of  mankind.  They  themselves  had  been  led, 
very  gradually,  to  their  position  and  they  believed  that  all 
men  were  under  similar  guidance  and  therefore  would  come 
to  it  eventually  of  their  own  motion.  Meanwhile,  why 
should  they  force  the  educative  process  ?  This  was  oddly 
analogous  to  the  Calvinistic  view  against  which  they  were 
vehemently  protesting,  but  they  were  unconscious  of  the  fact, 
and  their  attitude  of  religious  inactivity  appeared  to  them 
as  the  logical  outcome  of  their  fundamental  faith  in  the  dig- 
nity of  man  as  a  reasonable  being.    That  they  have  taken 


THE  UNITARIANS  II5 

but  little  interest  in  foreign  missions  is  undoubtedly  true, 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  until  very  recent  times  the 
motives  appealed  to  for  foreign  missionary  interest  and  the 
methods  employed  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work  could  not 
commend  themselves  to  Unitarians.  They  did  not  believe 
that  the  heathen  world  was  tumbling  into  hell  over  the 
Niagara  of  death.  On  the  contrary,  they  believed  that 
God  in  his  fatherly  mercy  was  guiding  all  his  children  and 
that  through  other  faiths  and  forms  than  the  Christian  he 
was  bringing  them  to  himself.  Hence,  they  could  not  in 
consistency  with  their  deepest  convictions  participate  in 
foreign  missionary  work  as  it  was  conducted  until  very 
recently.  They  would  have  sympathized,  for  example, 
much  more  cordially  with  Cyrus  Hamlin's  work  than  did  the 
American  Board.  Nor  has  their  home  missionary  work 
been  particularly  extensive  or  effective  for  somewhat  the 
same  reason.  To  be  sure,  after  the  Civil  War  came  a  period 
of  organization  in  which  some  of  the  old  prejudices  and  fears 
have  disappeared.  But  the  progress  of  Unitarianism  during 
the  last  seventy-five  years  has  been  theological  rather  than 
material,  and  of  this  I  propose  to  speak  in  the  next  lecture. 

II 

In  the  last  lecture,  while  using,  as  I  frequently  did,  the 
terms  "  Liberal  "  and  "  Liberal  Christian  "  to  designate  the 
left  wing  of  the  standing  order  I  was  painfully  reminded  of 
the  feeling  which  once  came  over  me  on  reading  in  a  Chicago 
newspaper  an  advertisement  of  a  convention  of  "  Liberal 
Physicians  "  to  be  held  in  one  of  the  smaller  cities  of  Illinois. 
There  was  no  subsequent  account  of  the  proceedings  by 
which  one  could  ascertain  the  principles  and  methods  of  the 
organization,  nor  were  there  illustrations  to  show  what  man- 
ner of  men  the  delegates  were.  Unfortunately,  the  latter 
omission  left  a  reader's  fancy  free  to  conjure  up  a  picture  of 


Il6  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  company  —  glib  and  pretentious  "  Smart  Alecks  "  dis- 
persed among  pompous  white- whiskered  "  old  doctors  " 
wearing  frock  coats  and  white  ties,  all  blatantly  declaiming 
against  the  "  regulars  "  of  whatever  school.  It  was  not  an 
agreeable  picture,  and  very  likely  it  was  wholly  unfair,  yet 
it  inspired  a  strong  and  enduring  dislike  for  the  word  in 
ecclesiastical  usage.  If  the  designation  means  open-minded, 
free  from  prejudice,  equally  ready  to  discard  the  false,  not- 
withstanding its  antiquity,  or  to  accept  the  true  despite  its 
novelty,  then  indeed  the  appellation  is  honorable:  but  by 
the  same  token  it  is  impudent  to  make  of  it  a  party  name  as 
if  all  others  than  those  bearing  the  label  were  besotted  with 
prejudice,  stupid  and  ignorant  conformists  in  thought  and 
practice.  A  similar  objection  was  expressed  by  Channing, 
who  in  a  letter  to  Thacher,  under  date  of  June  20,  181 5, 
wrote  as  follows: 

I  have  used  the  phrase  or  denomination  Liberal  Christians  because 
it  is  used  by  the  Reviewer  [in  the  Panoplist,  of  Dr.  Morse's  American 
Uniiarianism]  to  distinguish  those  whom  he  assails.  I  have  never  been 
inclined  to  claim  this  appellation  for  myself  or  my  friends,  because  as 
the  word  liberality  expresses  the  noblest  qualities  of  the  human  mind, 
—  freedom  from  local  prejudices  and  narrow  feelings,  the  enlargement 
of  the  views  and  affections,  —  I  have  thought  that  the  assumption 
of  it  would  savor  of  that  spirit  which  has  attempted  to  limit  the  words 
orthodox  and  evangelical  to  a  particular  body  of  Christians.  As  the 
appellation,  however,  cannot  well  be  avoided,  I  will  state  the  meaning 
which  I  attach  to  it. 

By  a  Liberal  Christian,  then,  I  understand  one  who  is  disposed  to 
receive  as  his  brethren  in  Christ  all  who  in  the  judgment  of  charity, 
sincerely  profess  to  receive  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Lord  and  Master. 
He  rejects  all  tests  and  standards  of  Christian  faith  and  of  Christian 
character,  but  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  his  inspired  apostles. 
He  thinks  it  an  act  of  disloyalty  to  his  Master  to  introduce  into  the 
Church  creeds  of  fallible  men  as  bonds  of  union  or  terms  of  Christian 
fellowship.  He  calls  himself  by  no  name  derived  from  human  leaders, 
disclaims  all  exclusive  connection  with  any  sect  or  party,  professes 


THE  UNITARIANS  II7 

himself  a  member  of  the  Church  Universal  on  earth  and  in  heaven, 
and  cheerfully  extends  the  hand  of  brotherhood  to  every  man  of  every 
name  who  discovers  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ. 

According  to  this  view  of  Liberal  Christian,  they  cannot  be  called 
a  party.  They  are  distinguished  only  by  refusing  to  separate  them- 
selves in  any  form  or  degree  from  the  great  body  of  Christ.  They 
are  scattered,  too,  through  all  classes  of  Christians.  I  have  known 
Trinitarians  and  Calvinists  who  justly  deserve  the  name  of  Liberal, 
who  regard  with  affection  all  who  appear  to  follow  Jesus  Christ  in 
temper  and  life,  however  they  may  differ  on  the  common  points  of 
theological  controversy.  To  this  class  of  Christians,  which  is  scattered 
over  the  earth,  and  which  I  trust  has  never  been  extinct  in  any  age, 
I  profess  and  desire  to  belong.  God  send  them  prosperity !  —  In 
this  part  of  the  country  Liberal  Christians,  as  they  have  been  above 
described,  are  generally  though  by  no  means  universally.  Unitarians 
in  the  proper  sense  of  that  word. 

I  have  given  this  long  quotation  because  it  shows  the 
spirit  which  animated  Channing  and  his  friends  in  the  dis- 
tressing days  just  preceding  the  pitiable  schism  in  Congre- 
gationalism. And  from  Channing  that  spirit  never  departed, 
as  many  well-known  utterances  at  successive  stages  of  his 
career  abundantly  prove.  He  was  "  always  young  for 
Hberty "  and  was  acknowledged  by  Theodore  Parker  as 
leader  of  the  progressive  party  in  Unitarianism,  a  fact  of 
which  excellent  people  who  used  to  call  themselves  Chan- 
ning Unitarians  seemed  quite  unaware,  but  it  was  only 
natural  that  in  the  thick  of  the  controversy  when  mean 
accusations  were  rife  and  ugly  epithets  were  flying,  and 
hitting,  many  of  his  followers  should  have  failed  to  show  their 
leader's  generous  and  progressive  spirit.  And  it  must  also 
be  said  that  notwithstanding  this  genial  and  genuine  irenic 
temper,  which  alone  they  would  have  the  term  Liberal  con- 
note, the  members  of  the  group  did  hold  to  opinions  decidedly 
different  from  those  of  their  opponents,  of  which  they  were 
equally  tenacious,  and  from  which,  in  general,  they  had  no 
notion  of  departing  by  way  either  of  retreat  or  advance. 


Il8  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

To  describe  these  opinions  and  to  show  the  historical  de- 
velopment which  did  ensue  within  the  denomination  as  a 
whole,  notwithstanding  the  Unitarian  orthodoxy  depre- 
cated by  Channing,  is  our  task  today. 

At  bottom,  both  Liberals  and  Conservatives  were  agreed 
in  accepting  a  revelation  from  God  to  a  sinning  and  erring 
world:  on  the  one  side,  this  revelation  was  generally  re- 
ceived without  inquiry,  traditionally  and  as  of  course,  while 
on  the  other  it  was  rationally  upheld  by  the  twofold  argu- 
ment from  miracles  and  prophecy,  the  Jachin  and  Boaz  of 
the  temple  of  revelation.  Both  parties,  then,  beheved  in 
special  revelation,  divinely  communicated,  and  both  held 
that  this  revelation  was  in  the  Bible.  The  Unitarians  were 
more  ready  than  their  opponents  to  acknowledge  progress 
in  the  revelation,  esteeming  the  New  Testament  of  higher 
value  than  the  Old  and  the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  highest  of 
all  —  but  this  difference  was  practically  observed  rather 
than  theoretically  avowed.  Moreover,  they  preferred  to 
speak  of  the  Bible  as  the  record  of  a  revelation  rather  than 
as  the  revelation  itself,  but  this  too  was  a  distinction  in- 
stinctively felt  and  practically  effective  oftener  than  formally 
acknowledged.  In  the  Christian  Examiner  for  July,  1830, 
is  a  flat-footed  declaration  of  the  Unitarian  view: 

We  lay  our  hand  strongly  then  upon  the  foundation  —  the  Bible. 
We  say,  There  is  a  communication  from  heaven.  There  is  light 
supernaturally  communicated,  and  attested,  to  those  Heaven- 
commissioned  prophets  and  apostles,  who,  in  their  turn,  have  simply, 
naturally,  each  after  the  manner  of  his  own  age,  his  own  style,  his  own 
peculiar  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  imparted  it  to  us.  There  are 
truths  recorded,  beyond  the  human  reach  of  the  men  who  delivered 
them,  and  they  are  truths  dearer  to  us  than  life.  Right  or  wrong  in 
our  conviction,  this  is  what  we  believe. 

Avowing  thus,  lilce  their  opponents,  belief  in  the  Bible  and 
in  revelation,  the  Unitarians  went  on  to  say  that  in  order  to 


THE  UNITARIANS  II9 

apprehend  the  revelation  the  Bible  must  be  rationally  inter- 
preted. The  tendency  of  the  other  party  was  to  teach  that 
the  Scriptures  must  be  literally  believed  whether  their  teach- 
ings were  rational  or  not,  but  the  Unitarians  were  as  confi- 
dent as  the  Schoolmen  that  Reason  and  Revelation  speak 
with  one  voice  since  God  is  author  of  both.  May  I  digress 
for  a  moment  to  say  that  at  this  point  both  parties  were 
wrong  and  that,  as  we  have  now  come  to  see,  the  historical 
principle  of  interpretation  must  be  employed.  The  Bible 
can  be  interpreted  rationally  only  in  case  it  was  all  written 
rationally  and  with  a  reason  in  the  writer  like  that  in  the 
interpreter,  but  both  of  these  implicit  assumptions  are  un- 
tenable. To  assume  in  advance  that  everything  in  the  Bible 
must  be  rational,  as  we  conceive  the  rational,  leads  almost 
inevitably  to  cruel  rackings  of  the  text  and  to  ingeniously 
false  exegesis.  The  Unitarians  then  were  wrong  in  their 
fundamental  principle  of  interpretation,  although  granting 
the  common  premise  of  revelation  they  were  more  nearly 
right  than  their  critics,  not  only  because  revelation  is  not 
revelation  until  appropriated  within  a  context  of  thought, 
but  also  because  they  had  at  least  an  inkling  of  the  historical 
method,  for  the  writer  just  quoted  referred  to  individual 
peculiarities  of  style  and  the  very  form  and  pressure  of  the 
age  as  affecting  the  mode  in  which  the  divine  message  was 
imparted.  That  is  to  say,  the  eternal  truth  has  to  be  enucle- 
ated from  its  historical  form,  and  for  this  undertaking  the 
historical  method  is  indispensable. 

What  then  did  the  Bible  rationally  interpreted  teach  ? 
The  Unitarians  differed  from  the  Orthodox  at  four  main 
points,  (i)  They  believed  that  the  Scriptures  teach  the  strict 
and  simple  unity  and  not  the  trinity  of  God.  That  the  doc- 
trine of  the  trinity  was  irrational,  not  one  of  them  doubted, 
and  this,  indeed,  was  admitted  on  the  other  side,  yet  with 
the  important  difference  that  it  was  held  to  be  beyond,  not 


I20  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

contrary  to,  reason,  and  as  part  of  the  revelation  to  be  ac- 
cepted by  faith.  But  the  Unitarians  denied  that  it  was  part 
of  the  revelation,  holding  that  the  Bible  teaches  consistently 
throughout  that  God  is  one.  It  must  be  remembered,  for 
a  correct  understanding  of  this  phase  of  the  discussion,  that 
in  New  England,  at  that  time,  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity, 
always  swaying  between  tritheism  and  Sabellianism,  had 
swung  pretty  far  over  to  the  tritheistic  side  and  the  threeness 
was  made  far  more  prominent  than  the  oneness  of  God. 
The  Unitarian  protest  can  be  fairly  judged  only  with  refer- 
ence to  the  contemporary  views  against  which  it  was  directed. 
In  reality,  the  historic  creeds  of  the  Christian  Church  are 
scrupulous  to  safeguard  both  the  identity  and  the  distinc- 
tions of  the  Godhead,  so  that,  theoretically,  Trinitarians 
are  no  less  strenuous  for  the  unity  of  God  than  Unitarians. 
But,  unfortunately,  nobody  in  New  England  at  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century  seems  to  have  understood  the  historical 
significance  of  the  Catholic  creeds,  nor  had  the  modern 
philosophical  interpretation  of  the  trinity  as  denoting  the 
essential  and  eternal  principle  of  diversity  in  unity  appeared 
above  the  horizon.  At  the  time,  trinity  meant  baldly  three 
persons  in  the  plain,  prosaic  Boston  sense  of  the  term  per- 
sons, subsisting  in  the  one  Being  of  a  personal  God  similarly 
understood,  and  to  the  Unitarians  that  seemed  both  irra- 
tional and  unscriptural;  hence,  they  supposed  it  necessary 
to  deny  the  trinity,  in  order  to  afiirm  the  unity,  of  God. 

(2)  If  now  the  strict  and  simple  unity  of  God  is  main- 
tained, what  about  Christ  ?  This  brings  us  to  the  second 
point  of  difference,  the  nature  of  Christ,  and  here  one 
cannot  do  better  than  quote  again  from  Channing's  letter 
to  Thacher: 

The  word  Unitarianism  as  denoting  opposition  to  Trinitarianism 
undoubtedly  expresses  the  character  of  a  considerable  part  of  the 
ministers  of  this  town  and  its  vicinity  and  the  Commonwealth.    But 


THE  UNITARIANS  121 

we  both  of  us  know  that  their  Unitarianism  is  of  a  very  different  kind 
from  that  of  Mr.  Belsham.  We  agreed  in  our  late  conference,  that  a 
majority  of  our  brethren  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  more  than  man, 
that  he  existed  before  the  world,  that  he  literally  came  from  heaven 
to  save  our  race,  that  he  sustains  other  ofl&ces  than  those  of  a  teacher 
and  witness  to  the  truth,  and  that  he  still  acts  for  our  benefit  and  is 
our  intercessor  with  the  Father.  This  we  agreed  to  be  the  prevalent 
sentiment  of  our  brethren.  There  is  another  class  of  Liberal  Chris- 
tians who  whilst  they  reject  the  distinction  of  three  persons  in  one  God 
are  yet  unable  to  pass  a  definite  judgment  on  the  various  systems 
which  prevail  as  to  the  nature  and  rank  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  are 
met  by  difficulties  on  every  side,  and  generally  rest  in  the  conclusion 
that  He  whom  God  has  appointed  to  be  our  Saviour  must  be  precisely 
adapted  to  His  work,  and  that  acceptable  faith  consists  in  regarding 
and  following  Him  as  our  Lord,  Teacher,  and  Saviour,  without  de- 
ciding on  his  nature  or  rank  in  the  universe.  There  is  another  class 
who  believe  the  simple  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ:  but  these  form  a 
small  proportion  of  the  great  body  of  Unitarians  in  this  part  of  our 
country,  and  I  doubt  whether  of  these  one  individual  can  be  found 
who  could  conscientiously  subscribe  to  Mr.  Belsham's  creed  as  given 
in  the  Review. 

With  respect  to  the  nature  of  Christ,  then,  the  majority 
of  the  Unitarians  of  Channing's  time  were  probably  Arians, 
although  there  were  a  few  Socinians  among  them.  But  all 
of  them  laid  stress  upon  the  humanity  of  Christ,  which, 
although  the  Church  had  labored  hard  to  maintain  it  equally 
with  his  divinity,  had  actually  faded  into  the  background  of 
the  mind  of  New  England  Protestantism,  and  indeed,  of 
Christians  as  a  whole,  if  it  had  not  actually  vanished.  Here 
the  Unitarians  were  rendering  greater  service  than  they  real- 
ized, for  they  were  recalling  to  the  mind  of  Christendom  the 
man  Jesus,  fixing  attention  upon  his  character  and  example, 
and  this,  let  me  repeat,  was  a  service  which  might  have 
been,  and  indeed  has  been,  gratefully  accepted  and  acknowl- 
edged by  many  who  are  still  at  one  with  the  ancient  creeds 
in  afifirming  both  his  full  humanity  and  his  full  divinity. 


122  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

As  regards  the  nature  of  Christ,  as  well  as  the  unity  of  God, 
there  was  ample  room  in  the  historic  creeds  of  the  church 
for  the  affirmations  of  the  Unitarians  as  well  as  for  those  of 
their  opponents  —  but  neither  party  was  historical  in  knowl- 
edge, still  less  in  mental  temper  and  attitude.  Nor  does 
either  seem  to  have  had  the  faintest  conception  of  the  mean- 
ing of  Catholic.  Both  equated  it  with  Roman  Cathohc, 
and  thought  only  of  priests  and  the  Pope,  Guy  Fawkes  and 
St.  Bartholomew's  Eve.  Whether  the  Catholic  creeds  are 
really  credible,  whether  opposite  statements  can  be  brought 
into  intelligible  unity  by  mere  juxtaposition  and  shrewd 
distribution  of  emphasis,  is  quite  another  matter  and  does 
not  concern  us  here.  My  present  point  is  that  so  far  as 
mere  statement  goes  there  was  room  in  the  comprehensive 
creeds  of  the  Catholic  church  for  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  both  sides  —  but  neither  party  knew  it. 

(3)  The  third  point  in  dispute  has  to  do  with  the 
nature  of  man.  It  must  be  remembered  that  one  feature  of 
Edwards's  movement  was  an  exaggerated  emphasis  upon 
the  Augustine-Calvin  doctrine  of  human  depravity.  It  was 
held  that  on  account  of  the  sin  of  Adam  all  his  posterity  had 
come  under  the  curse  of  God  as  sinners,  deprived  of  the 
supernatural  endowments  which  their  first  ancestor  had  lost 
by  his  transgression  and  so  depraved  in  nature  as  to  be 
incapable,  unaided  by  divine  grace,  of  doing  anything  good 
in  God's  sight.  To  this  doctrine  of  the  depravity  of  man  the 
Unitarians  opposed  their  teaching  of  the  native  dignity  of 
man.  Not  that  they  held  formally  to  a  doctrine  of  Crea- 
tionism  as  against  Traducianism,  teaching  that  human  souls 
come  fresh  and  pure  out  of  the  being  of  God  dowered  with 
original  righteousness  —  they  did  not  carry  their  idea  so 
far  as  that,  for  they  were  not  quite  so  "  innocent "  as  they 
have  been  represented.  Moreover,  Edwards  had  shown  that 
Creationism  could  be  quite  compatible  with  the  doctrine  of 


THE  UNITARIANS  1 23 

depravity.  But  they  did  believe  that  in  man,  particularly 
in  his  reason  and  conscience,  were  divine  elements  unim- 
paired by  the  traditional  fall  of  Adam,  and  that  if  by  culti- 
vation these  elements  became  preeminent  and  controlling, 
as  they  certainly  might,  man  would  be  good  even  in  the 
sight  of  God.  There  is  a  standing  gibe  that  one  who  was  born 
in  Boston  has  no  need  to  be  born  again.  The  Unitarians 
held  that  regeneration  was  not  needed  to  implant  in  man 
divine  elements  which,  just  because  he  was  a  man  were  in 
him  naturally  and  originally.  Furthermore,  they  believed 
that  most  of  the  evils  from  which  society  suffered  were  due 
to  this  low  opinion  of  man,  which  induced  those  in  power 
to  treat  him  as  if  he  actually  were  what  Calvinism  believed 
him  to  be,  and  that  with  true  appreciation  of  the  inherent 
and  inalienable  dignity  and  worth  of  man  cruelty  and  op- 
pression would  cease.  Thus  to  honor  man  carried  with  it 
respect  for  his  reason  and  moral  sense  and  the  obligation  to 
educate  his  intelligence.  If  the  Unitarians  have  been  dis- 
tinguished for  their  interest  in  educational  and  philanthropic 
movements,  it  is  due  largely  to  this  firmly-held  conviction 
as  to  the  worth  and  the  dignity  of  the  individual  man  as 
child  of  God,  made  in  his  image  and  retaining  divine  quali- 
ties notwithstanding  his  ignorance,  weakness,  and  sin.  As 
for  the  complicity  of  the  whole  race  in  Adam's  sin,  that  was 
denied  as  both  irrational  and  unscriptural. 

(4)  With  the  view  as  to  the  nature  of  man,  goes  a  doctrine 
concerning  salvation.  Of  course,  if  man  is  wholly  destitute 
of  divine  qualities  they  can  become  his  only  through  com- 
munication from  God  himself,  and  thus  the  doctrine  of  re- 
generation may  be  made  to  appear  necessary.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  divine  is  already  in  him,  even  in  the  most 
degraded  and  depraved,  needing  only  to  be  awakened  and 
emancipated,  then  the  idea  of  regeneration  becomes  super- 
fluous.    Long  before,   during  the  century  between  Anne 


124  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Hutchinson  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  doctrine  of  regener- 
ation, although  still  formally  avowed,  had  fallen  into 
abeyance.  The  dread  of  immediate  revelation  by  the  direct 
operation  of  the  Spirit,  enthusiasm  as  it  was  called,  engen- 
dered by  the  Hutchinson  troubles  and  strengthened  by  the 
Quakers,  led  naturally  to  the  neglect  of  the  idea  that  the 
Spirit  acts  directly  in  the  work  of  regeneration  and  to  empha- 
sis upon  the  means  of  grace.  Continuing,  and  more  definitely 
avowing,  this  theological  tendency,  the  Unitarians  held  that 
God  ever  takes  sides  with  the  human  reason  and  conscience, 
aiding  every  good  endeavor,  guiding  every  upward  aim,  upon 
whom,  therefore,  man  may  confidently  rely  while  he  strives  to 
walk  in  the  way  of  righteousness.  To  apprehend  adequately 
the  significance  of  this  doctrine  one  must  set  it  against  the 
dark  background  of  the  prevailing  New  England  dogma, 
but  for  this  we  have  no  time  today.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
the  whole  scheme  of  salvation  as  then  commonly  held 
appeared  to  them  unworthy  of  God.  They  were  unable  to 
believe  that  an  innocent  person  could  justly  receive  punish- 
ment due  to  the  real  offender,  or  that  righteousness  on  the 
one  hand,  guilt  on  the  other,  could  justly  be  transferred  or 
imputed.  Imputed  righteousness  was  in  their  eyes  but  a 
sham  and  a  make-believe.  For  the  real  thing  they  supremely 
cared  and  they  were  daring  enough  to  beheve  that  God  did 
too.  Nor  were  they  dismayed  by  a  sense  of  the  awful  holi- 
ness of  Him  in  whose  sight  the  very  heavens  are  unclean, 
before  whom  human  goodness  can  but  lay  its  hand  upon  its 
mouth  in  abject  humility,  for  "  He  knoweth  our  frame.  He 
remembereth  that  we  are  dust."  Let  me  add  that  this  gave 
rise  to  a  comparatively  new  type  of  piety  in  Christianity. 
Through  the  Middle  Ages  the  ideal  of  piety  could  be  fully 
realized  only  in  the  separated  life  of  the  professionally 
"  religious."  Luther  would  have  no  double  standard,  one 
for  the  monk,  another  for  the  layman,  but  applied  the  idea 


THE  UNITARIANS  1 25 

of  the  religious  life  to  the  ways  of  common  folk.  This 
developed  into  the  type  of  piety  characteristic  of  New  Eng- 
land Unitarians.  It  was  reverent  and  devout,  a  piety  of 
the  understanding  and  the  will  far  more  than  of  the  emotions, 
calling  for  strict  and  honorable  fidelity  in  all  the  relations 
and  to  all  the  obligations  of  life,  but  lacking  in  the  glow  and 
fervor  of  feeling.  There  was  about  it  a  square-toed  solidity 
and  integrity  —  sixteen  ounces  to  a  pound  and  one  hundred 
cents  to  a  dollar,  —  which  commands  respect  but  fails  to 
kindle  the  imagination.  This  was  the  ideal  of  piety  arising 
naturally  out  of  Unitarian  thought,  about  which  much  more 
might  be  said  to  advantage  if  time  allowed. 

Around  these  four  points,  then,  the  controversy  raged, 
but  the  difference  was  deeper  than  these  —  a  difference  of 
spirit  and  attitude.  "  These  men  are  of  another  spirit  than 
we,"  said  Luther  of  the  Zwinglians,  and  rightly.  Dr.  Hedge 
used  to  say  that  instead  of  Unitarianism  the  movement  we 
are  considering  should  have  been  called  Humanism  —  and 
in  truth  it  was  at  heart  a  human  protest  against  a  lop-sided 
doctrine  of  divine  sovereignty  which  robbed  man  of  all  real 
freedom  and  worth.  I  would  emphasize  this,  because  with- 
out it  the  subsequent  course  of  thought  cannot  be  rightly 
understood.  Man  is  God's  child,  made  in  His  image  and 
object  of  His  love;  his  reason  and  conscience  are  divine 
witnesses  to  truth  and  right,  and  when  governed  by  them 
he  walks  in  the  ways  of  God,  safe  in  his  Father's  love  and 
care.  The  God  in  whom  their  opponents  believed — a  God  of 
election  and  reprobation,  capable  of  dooming  an  entire  race 
because  its  ancestors  disobeyed,  a  God  of  arbitrary  will  and 
discriminating  grace  —  seemed  to  them  simply  an  immoral 
being  and  they  frankly  said  so.  But  this  condemnation 
was  in  the  light  of  reason  and  moral  sense  which  to  the 
orthodox  were  but  wandering  fires  compared  with  the  clear 
shining  of  revelation  as  they  understood  it. 


126  RELIGIOUS  raSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

So  the  lines  were  drawn.  The  Congregational  order  was 
divdded  and  the  two  parties  went  their  respective  ways. 
It  is  for  us  now  to  follow  the  course  of  the  Unitarian 
theology. 

Do  reason  and  the  Bible  really  speak  with  the  same  voice, 
and  if  they  appear  to  disagree  which  is  to  be  followed  ? 
This  was  obviously  a  fundamental  question  certain  to  arise 
as  thought  and  time  went  on.  Channing  said:  "  If  after 
a  deliberate  and  impartial  use  of  our  best  faculties  a  pro- 
fessed revelation  seems  to  us  plainly  to  disagree  with  itself 
or  clash  with  great  principles  which  we  cannot  question, 
we  ought  not  to  hesitate  in  withholding  from  it  our  belief. 
I  am  surer  that  my  rational  nature  is  from  God  than  that 
any  book  is."  So  Channing:  but  on  the  other  hand  Parker 
reports  that  in  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  he  was  taught 
by  Professor  Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  that  if  there  appeared  to  be 
any  contradiction  between  the  reason  of  man  and  the  letter 
of  the  Bible,  Christians  must  follow  the  written  word,  for 
"  you  can  never  be  so  certain  of  the  correctness  of  what  takes 
place  in  your  own  mind  as  of  what  is  written  in  the  Bible." 

Here,  then,  were  the  opposite  tendencies  within  Unitarian- 
ism,  and  of  the  two  Channing's  ultimately  prevailed.  Its 
victory  was  due  not  to  Channing's  influence  so  much  as  to 
the  progress  of  knowledge  in  many  directions.  Biblical 
criticism  undermined  the  argument  for  revelation  resting 
on  prophecy,  and  scientific  study  did  the  like,  more  slowly, 
for  the  argument  based  on  miracles.  Enlarging  acquaintance 
with  other  religions  made  more  than  doubtful  the  supposed 
uniqueness  of  Bible  teaching  and  so  became  adverse  to  belief 
in  particular  revelation.  At  last  Theodore  Parker  appeared 
boldly  denying  the  final  authority  of  the  Bible  and  the  reaUty 
of  revelation  ab  extra.  But  Parker  was  strong  for  the  worth 
of  man,  it  was  the  spring  of  all  his  anti-slavery  activities, 
and  the  higher  the  appreciation  of  humanity,  not  only  as  it 


THE  UNITARIANS  1 27 

is  but  also  as  it  may  become,  the  easier  to  include  Jesus 
within  its  compass.  Moreover,  emphasis  upon  the  character 
of  Jesus  which  was  taking  the  place  of  prophecy  and  miracle 
in  support  of  the  doctrine  of  revelation,  together  with  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  divine  possibilities  of  perfection  in  all 
men,  tended  in  the  same  direction.  So,  little  by  little  and  as 
the  convergence  of  many  different  lines  of  inquiry,  those 
who  called  themselves  Unitarians  were  bringing  religion 
within  the  sphere  of  the  natural  and  the  human.  Was  the 
result  to  be  deism,  or  natural  religion,  to  the  entire  rejection 
of  the  Supernatural  ?  So  it  appeared,  and  the  orthodox 
cried  triumphantly,  "  We  told  you  so!  From  the  beginning 
infidelity  was  latent  in  Unitarianism  and  now  it  has  become 
patent  to  all  men."  With  pathetic  indignation  the  Uni- 
tarians denied  that  it  was  so,  and  begged  that  they  be  not 
held  responsible  for  Parker's  utterances,  which  indeed  did 
not  represent  at  all  the  Unitarian  orthodoxy  of  the  time. 
But  if  Parker's  criticism  was  sapping  the  idea  of  revelation 
and  so  bringing  the  supernatural  within  the  domain  of  the 
natural,  a  contrary  tendency  in  him,  indicated  by  his  "  in- 
tuitions," was  leading  in  the  opposite  direction,  to  the  in- 
clusion of  the  natural  within  the  supernatural.  And  here 
we  meet  Emerson  with  his  teaching  of  the  supernaturalness 
of  the  natural. 

Draw  if  thou  canst  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  his  from  thine; 
Which  is  human,  which  divine. 

God,  the  one  in  all,  shining  through  all  commonplaces  and 
all  mysteries,  enlightening  man  from  within,  propulsive 
force  toward  all  perfection  —  this  was  Emerson's  sublime 
message.  If,  as  Emerson  complained,  the  Unitarians  of  his 
time  had  forgotten  that  men  were  poets,  his  song  made  them 
mindful  of  their  divine  inheritance.    With  Emerson  comes 


128  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  great  turning  point  in  the  theological  history  of  Uni- 
tarianism. 

Remarkably  enough,  his  influence  was  immeasurably  aided 
by  the  progress  of  scientific  research.  The  One  in  all  of  which 
he  spoke  seemed  to  be  affirmed  by  the  theories  of  conserva- 
tion of  energy  and  matter,  and  most  of  all  by  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  which  he  had  poetically  anticipated.  So  the 
doctrine  of  immanence  became  central  in  Unitarian  theology 
and  preaching.  In  its  light  most  of  the  old  questions  lost 
significance  or  presented  themselves  in  quite  difi'erent  forms. 
If  earlier  Unitarians  had  put  the  accent  on  Arians,  the  fol- 
lowers of  Emerson  threw  it  on  the  Unit.  The  unity  of  God 
and  of  man,  —  with  God  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  world  on 
the  other,  —  this  was  the  full-throated  paean  of  the  prophets, 
thinly  imitated,  it  must  be  confessed,  by  many  a  twitterer 
besprinkled  with  the  spume  of  Transcendental  speech  but 
unbaptized  into  the  depths  of  its  thinking.  On  the  whole, 
however,  this  was  in  Unitarian  theology  a  period  of  thinking 
in  terms  of  the  comprehensive  and  universal,  an  age  of 
reconciliation  which  sweetly  resolved  all  differences  into 
a  large  and  amiable  synthesis.  Accordingly  \'iews  once 
vehemently  opposed  came  to  be  regarded  as  partial  glimpses 
of  universal  truth.  Theology  became  one  with  religion, 
wherein  all  intellectual  differences  expired.  "  When  I  rest 
in  perfect  humility,  when  I  burn  with  pure  love,  what  can 
Calvin  or  Swedenborg  say  ?  "  Moreover,  wherever  Emer- 
son's influence  extended  among  Unitarians,  the  type  of 
piety  underwent  a  wondrous  change  —  brogans  were  trans- 
formed into  the  winged  sandals  of  Hermes.  Only  after  a 
generation  did  the  problems  arising  out  of  this  habit  of 
thought  demand  attention  —  but  problems  there  were.  For 
if  God  be  in  all,  then  he  is  in  the  terrible  as  well  as  in  the 
lovely,  in  the  earthquake  which  overthrows  cities  and  in 
the  fire  which  consumes  man's  most  treasured  possessions. 


THE  XJNITARIANS  1 29 

no  less  than  in  the  still  small  voice  in  the  human  soul.  If 
God  is  in  all,  can  he  be  a  moral  God  ?  Furthermore,  if  man 
is  thus  incorporated  in  nature,  does  it  not  follow  that  he, 
Hke  nature,  is  under  the  reign  of  law,  and  what  then  becomes 
of  his  freedom  ?  Thus  it  becomes  evident  that  the  course 
of  Unitarian  thought  presents  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
curves  in  all  theological  history.  It  began  as  a  human 
protest  against  Calvinism  with  its  immoral  God  and  its 
denial  of  human  worth  and  freedom,  only  to  swing  round 
into  a  Calvinism  of  immanence  where  the  goodness  of  God 
and  the  freedom  of  man  must  again  be  doubted  if  not 
denied.  From  Edwards  to  Emerson,  from  the  Calvinism 
of  transcendence  to  the  Calvinism  of  immanence  —  that 
was  the  spiral  curve  of  progress,  and  today  the  Unitarians 
have  been  brought  by  the  course  of  their  own  thinking  to 
the  same  problems  which  their  fathers  faced  in  different 
form,  only  now  they  are  problems  arising  out  of  their  own 
thoughts  and  not  from  those  of  their  opponents.  The  spiral 
is  complete  and  a  new  period  in  Unitarian  theology  must 
now  begin. 

To  the  same  point  have  many  of  their  former  adversaries 
been  brought,  although  by  somewhat  different  paths.  They 
too  were  students  of  the  Bible  and  accepted  the  results  of 
criticism,  they  too  followed  the  investigations  of  science, 
they  too  learned  to  know  other  religions,  they  too  learned 
of  Emerson  and  Emerson's  teachers.  It  is  not  for  us  here 
to  trace  the  course  of  orthodox  thinking  but  a  few  sug- 
gestions may  be  in  order. 

The  crux  of  Calvinism  had  always  been  how  God  could 
be  just  and  still  punish  men  who  had  no  freedom  and  hence 
could  have  no  responsibility.  To  remove  this  difficulty 
Edwards  introduced  into  New  England  thinking  a  distinc- 
tion which  he  deemed  all  important  between  natural  and 
moral  ability.    The  distinction  has  become  so  nearly  obso- 


I30  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

lete  now  that  when  a  few  years  ago  in  the  course  of  a  lecture 
before  the  Harvard  Summer  School  of  Theology  I  ventured 
to  expound  it,  a  veteran  Congregational  minister  came  to 
me  afterwards  and  with  tremulous  voice  remarked  that  it 
had  carried  him  back  to  the  days  of  his  youth  and  almost 
made  him  feel  young  again.  Memory  of  the  incident  em- 
boldens me  to  repeat  the  explanation  here.  Suppose  I 
should  be  asked  to  do  an  errand  on  Washington  Street 
immediately  after  the  close  of  this  lecture,  and  on  leaving 
the  church  should  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  break  my  leg  — 
in  that  case  I  could  fairly  plead  a  natural  inability  to  do 
what  was  asked  of  me.  But  if  I  were  lazy  or  churlish  and 
therefore  refused,  my  inability  would  be  moral  and  not 
natural.  Now,  according  to  Edwards,  man  has  natural 
ability  to  do  the  will  of  God,  all  the  machinery  for  execut- 
ing this  will  is  at  his  command  as  truly  as  it  is  at  that  of 
a  regenerate  man,  but  it  is  man's  will  that  is  at  fault  — 
hence  man  has  perfect  natural  ability  to  perform  all  the 
commandments  of  God,  and  having  natural  abihty  he 
may  justly  be  punished  notwithstanding  his  total  moral  in- 
ability. It  was  a  nice  distinction,  looking,  if  one  may  say 
so  with  all  deference,  like  an  attempt  to  worry  out  barely 
enough  freedom  for  a  man  to  be  decently  damned  on,  but 
it  was  used  to  excellent  purpose  and  had  unanticipated 
consequences.  Preachers,  especially  those  of  the  revival 
sort  among  the  Hopkinsians,  dwelt  upon  natural  abiUty 
with  ever  increasing  emphasis,  which  however  rested, 
as  time  went  on,  more  upon  the  noun  than  the  adjective. 
They  whispered  natural  and  shouted  ability.  Meanwhile 
the  doctrine  of  moral  inability  slipped  imperceptibly  away, 
until,  almost  before  it  was  realized  what  was  happening, 
the  distinction  was  out  of  mind,  full  ability  was  getting 
itself  preached,  and  the  preachers  were  trying  to  persuade 
themselves  and  others  that  nothing  else   had  ever  been 


THE  UNITARIANS  I3I 

meant.  So  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  anti-Unitarian 
ministers  had  dropped  the  doctrine  of  divine  sovereignty 
and  were  affirming  human  ability  and  freedom  as  stoutly 
as  their  old-time  opponents.  Indeed,  it  is  probable  that 
there  are  very  few  Trinitarian  churches  in  New  England, 
even  in  the  remote  back  country,  where  the  old  doctrine  of 
man  would  be  any  more  acceptable  today  than  it  would  in 
the  Unitarian  church  across  the  village  green. 

At  other  points  also  there  has  been  change.  In  Emerson's 
Journal  for  1842,  is  this  significant  entry:  "  Edward  Wash- 
burn told  me  that  at  Andover  they  sell  shelvesfull  of  Cole- 
ridge's Aids  to  Reflection  in  a  year."  Coleridge  stood  for  the 
same  cast  of  thought  as  Emerson  and  Robertson  and  Maurice, 
and  in  particular,  Bushnell  was  strongly  influenced  by  him 
and  in  his  turn  deeply  influenced  Phillips  Brooks.  Unitarians 
often  flatter  themselves  that  they  have  produced  the  change 
which  has  come  over  New  England  orthodoxy  and  doubtless 
they  deserve  some  of  the  credit,  or  blame,  but  their  direct 
influence  seems  to  me  slight  compared  with  the  general 
influences  to  which  both  they  and  their  neighbors  have  alike 
been  exposed.  May  I  very  briefly  specify  two  or  three  of 
the  changes. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  interpreted  to  mean  the 
doctrine  of  a  differentiated  unity.  If  this  is  what  it  means 
I  suppose  it  would  be  unobjectionable  to  most  Unitarians, 
although  they  would  wonder  a  little  why  the  differentiation 
should  be  merely  threefold  and  not  coextensive  with  the 
race  and  indeed  with  the  whole  world,  where  individual 
distinctions  are  supposed  to  be  protected  from  swamping 
by  this  doctrine  taken  philosophically.  There  is  also  a 
joyous  recognition  of  the  humanity  of  Christ,  and  the  doc- 
trine of  the  two-fold  nature  is  sometimes  held  to  mean  that 
in  him  as  in  us  aU  there  was  both  a  conscious  and  a  subcon- 
scious being,  or  in  more  scientific  terms  a  nature  inherited 


132  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

from  the  past  and  a  nature  prophetic  of  the  future,  an  animal 
inheritance  and  a  forward-driving  spirit.  That  is  not  at  all 
what  the  doctrine  originally  meant;  but  if  that  is  what  it 
means  now,  I  fancy  there  would  be  little  Unitarian  objection 
to  the  idea,  which  instead  of  separating  Christ  from  human- 
ity now  integrates  him  with  the  race  by  the  implication  — 
in  him  as  in  us  all.  The  dogma  of  human  depravity  has 
suffered  an  amazing  transformation  either  into  a  doctrine 
of  heredity,  reaching  back  not  to  Adam  but  to  animals,  or 
into  an  affirmation  of  the  social  nature  of  man  and  the  influ- 
ence upon  him  of  his  environment.  Satisfaction  and  moral 
government  theories  of  the  atonement  have  largely  given 
place  to  one  or  another  form  of  the  moral  influence  theory, 
which  is  not  in  the  least  offensive  to  Unitarians.  So  the  two 
bodies  have  arrived  each  in  its  own  way  at  substantially 
similar  theological  conclusions  on  the  points  once  at  issue. 

Furthermore,  the  social  spirit  has  seized  upon  both  alike. 
Solidarity  not  individuality  is  the  master  word  on  both 
sides.  Individual  sin  is  preached  less  pungently  than  of  old 
but  both  sides  vie  with  each  other  in  the  trenchancy  of  their 
condemnation  of  social  sin.  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? 
is  now  a  social  cry,  and  I  fancy  both  parties  are  in  reasonable 
accord  in  holding  that  the  way  of  salvation  is  the  way  of 
life  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  same  problems  are  before 
both.  In  the  course  of  events  both  have  been  led  to  about 
the  same  position  and  are  facing  the  same  theological  and 
social  problems  with  virtually  identical  mental  habits  and 
equipment,  and  in  the  same  spirit. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  Andover  Theological 
Seminary  and  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  symbolized  the 
divided  fellowship.  Each  went  its  own  way  for  a  century, 
but  exactly  one  hundred  years  after  its  establishment 
Andover  removed  to  Cambridge  and  now  both  schools  are 
working  together  and  their  students  mingle  indiscriminately 


THE  UNITARIANS  I33 

in  class-rooms  and  in  friendly  fellowship.  Neither  school 
has  sacrificed  one  iota  of  its  independence,  each  is  as  autono- 
mous as  it  ever  was,  but  they  work  together  in  happy  good 
fellowship.  May  we  not  hope  that  this  will  prove  an  effec- 
tive symbol  of  a  reconciliation  yet  to  come  between  the  two 
parts  of  the  ancient  Congregational  order,  in  which  each  shall 
maintain  its  own  integrity  and  both  shall  labor  together  at 
the  social  and  theological  problems  which  lie  before  them 
both!  Should  this  indeed  come  to  pass,  the  words  used  at 
the  Commencement  of  1909  by  President  Lowell  in  confer- 
ring an  honorary  degree  upon  one  of  the  Andover  Trustees 
who  had  labored  zealously  and  successfully  for  the  affiliation 
would  take  on  prophetic  meaning,  — "  Charles  Lothrop 
Noyes  —  pastor  and  preacher  —  who  in  these  latter  days 
has  helped  to  bring  nearer  together  those  whom  the  blindness 
of  man  had  put  asunder." 


Ill 

THE  BAPTISTS 

GEORGE  E.  HORR 


THE   BAPTISTS 


THE  Reformation  in  England  developed  three  distinct 
stages  and  the  present  situation  of  English-speaking 
Protestantism  represents  survivals  of  each  of  them.  The 
Established  Church  of  England  represents  the  first  stage. 
It  is  characterized  by  two  features  —  the  repudiation  of  the 
papal  supremacy  and  a  reformation  in  doctrine.  The  second 
stage  is  represented  by  historic  Puritanism,  which,  in  addition 
to  the  repudiation  of  the  papal  supremacy  and  a  reformation 
in  doctrine,  sought  to  reform  ritual.  This  movement,  be- 
ginning in  the  vestment  controversy,  came  to  stand  for  a 
simpler  form  of  worship,  and  a  more  democratical  polity. 
The  third  stage  is  represented  by  Separatism,  or  Independ- 
ency, and  adds  to  repudiation  of  papal  supremacy  and  a 
reformation  of  doctrine  and  of  ritual  and  polity,  a  fresh 
criticism  and  analysis  of  the  Church  itself. 

The  early  English  Separatists  were  confronted  by  a  con- 
ception of  the  Church  which  regarded  it  as  a  great  corpora- 
tion, practically  coextensive  with  the  nation.  Archbishop 
Whitgift  spoke  for  Elizabeth  when  he  said  that  the  English 
commonwealth  was  the  English  church.  That  is  the  theory 
that  Hooker  elaborated  twenty  years  later  in  his  Ecclesiastical 
Polity.  The  early  English  Independents,  following  Robert 
Browne,  said  that  a  man  is  not  necessarily  a  Christian  be- 
cause he  is  an  Englishman,  and  one  who  is  not  a  Christian 
has  no  title  to  membership  in  a  Christian  church.  The 
Independent  or  Separatist  movement,  which  gave  birth  to 
the  EngHsh  Congregational  and  Baptist  denominations,  was 

137 


138  RELIGIOUS  mSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

based  on  a  conviction  that  a  church  should  be  composed  only 
of  those  who  are  Christians,  that  is,  of  those  who  have  per- 
sonally exercised  faith  in  Christ. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  Independents  a  church  is  not  a  corpora- 
tion composed  of  persons  who  are  held  together  by  some  tie 
of  locality,  birth,  or  principle  of  succession.  It  is  a  body 
of  professed  believers  in  Christ.  The  tie  that  holds  them 
together  is  that  of  a  common  spiritual  experience.  The 
continuity  and  vitality  of  the  organization  reside  in  the 
possession  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Men  are  not  born  into  the 
fellowship  of  the  Church.  They  enter  it  as  their  own 
voluntary  act  by  divine  grace. 

A  shipwrecked  company  cast  on  a  desert  island,  rescuing 
a  New  Testament  from  the  waves,  may  have  their  hearts  so 
touched  by  the  Gospel  and  so  respond  to  Christ  that  they 
may  constitute  as  valid  a  church  as  was  ever  founded.  They 
may  have  the  essential  notes  of  a  true  church,  —  faith  in 
Christ,  confession  of  Him,  association  for  worship,  work,  and 
discipline. 

The  Baptist  group  among  the  Independents  applied  this 
central  principle  in  a  more  thoroughgoing  manner  than  their 
Congregational  brethren.  Probably  at  first  only  a  few  real- 
ized the  implication  of  the  simple  statement  that  what  gives 
one  a  title  to  membership  in  a  Christian  church  is  that 
inward  response  of  the  soul  to  Christ  that  constitutes 
Christian  faith. 

This  emphasis  upon  spiritual  experience  led  a  few  far- 
visioned  men  to  see  that  it  logically  involved  the  principle  of 
rehgious  liberty  and  the  separation  of  church  and  state.  If 
this  personal  response  of  the  soul  to  Christ  is  so  precious  that 
it  is  the  heart  of  religion,  then  it  must  be  voluntary,  abso- 
lutely without  restraint.  It  is  a  grievous  wrong  to  any  soul 
to  coerce  its  life  toward  God.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  cannot 
be  done,  and  the  attempt  to  do  it  by  the  power  of  the  State 


THE  BAPTISTS  139 

results  in  innumerable  hypocrisies.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
there  are  not  many  sincere  believers  when  the  power  of  the 
State  is  used  to  maintain  and  propagate  religion;  it  is  to 
say  that  these  behevers  are  not  and  cannot  be  produced  by 
the  State. 

Professor  Platner  has  called  your  attention  to  the  Gains- 
borough-Scrooby  church  of  Independents.  From  the 
Scrooby  branch  came  the  church  at  Leyden  and  Plymouth, 
Massachusetts.  From  the  Gainsborough  branch,  after  a 
migration  to  Amsterdam  and  a  return  to  England,  came  the 
first  Arminian  Baptist  Church  in  London,  which  in  1611 
issued  a  Confession  in  which  occurs  this  declaration: 

The  magistrate,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  is  not  to  intermeddle  with 
religion,  or  matters  of  conscience,  nor  to  compel  men  to  this  or  that 
form  of  religion  or  doctrine,  but  to  leave  the  Christian  religion  to  the 
free  conscience  of  everyone  and  to  meddle  only  with  political  matters. 
Christ  alone  is  the  KLing  and  Lawgiver  of  the  Church  and  Conscience. 

Robert  Browne  twenty  years  before  had  approached  this 
position,  but  recent  discoveries  of  his  lost  writings  make  it 
clear  that  he  was  very  far  from  rising  to  this  height.  And 
Professor  Masson  in  his  Life  of  Milton,  quoting  these  clauses 
in  the  Confession  of  161 1,  says  that  this 

is  the  first  expression  of  the  absolute  principle  of  liberty  of  Conscience 
in  the  public  articles  of  any  body  of  Christians.  Thus  from  a  dingy 
meetinghouse  somewhere  in  Old  London  there  flashed  out  first  in 
England  the  absolute  doctrine  of  liberty  of  conscience.  .  .  .  Not  to 
the  Church  of  England,  however,  nor  to  Scottish  Presbyterianism, 
nor  to  English  Puritanism  at  large,  does  the  honor  of  the  perception 
of  the  full  principle  of  liberty  of  conscience  and  its  first  assertion  in 
English  speech,  belong.  That  honor  has  to  be  assigned,  I  believe,  to 
the  Independents  generally,  and  to  the  Baptists  in  particular. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  this  doctrine  of  religious  liberty 
is  to  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the  doctrine  of  Toleration 
with  which  it  has  often  been  confused.    Toleration  is  for  you 


140  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  say  to  me,  I  will  permit  you  to  exercise  such  practices  in 
religion.  Liberty  is  for  you  to  say  to  me,  I  do  these  things 
not  because  you  allow  me,  but  because  I  have  a  right  to 
follow  my  conscience  independently  of  your  permission. 
Toleration  involves  a  permission  that  might  rightfully  be 
withheld.  Liberty  involves  a  right  not  dependent  upon 
another's  allowance. 

Your  attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that 
among  the  Separatist  movements  was  the  so-called  London- 
Amsterdam  Church  led  by  Greenwood  and  Francis  and 
George  Johnson.  The  so-called  Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey  Church 
in  London  was  one  of  the  heirs  of  this  organization,  and  it 
was  in  this  church  that  there  arose  the  discussion  about 
baptism  which  fixed  the  lines  of  division  on  this  matter 
between  the  Baptists  and  the  Congregationalists.  Just  as 
there  emerged  in  the  Gainsborough-Scrooby  Church  a  party 
which  saw  clearly  and  strongly  emphasized  the  principle 
of  religious  liberty,  so  in  the  Jacob-Lathrop  Church  there 
emerged  a  party  which  came  to  hold  the  views  of  the  modern 
Baptists  as  to  the  subjects  of  baptism  and  as  to  the  form  of 
the  ordinance. 

Three  matters  were  under  discussion  in  this  church  which 
should  be  sharply  distinguished:  —  First,  successional  bap- 
tism; in  other  words,  was  there  an  unbroken  line  of  baptized 
persons  from  the  days  of  the  Apostles  through  whom  what 
was  called ' '  valid ' '  baptism  had  been  transmitted  ?  Secondly, 
behevers'  baptism;  in  other  words,  could  the  ordinance  be 
rightfully  administered  to  anyone  except  after  his  confession 
of  personal  faith  in  Christ  ?  This  question  of  course  was 
answered  in  a  way  that  involved  the  most  sweeping  denial  of 
the  scripturalism  of  infant  baptism.  Thirdly,  what  was  the 
mode  of  baptism  enjoined  in  the  New  Testament  ?  This 
question  was  answered  by  the  Baptist  party  to  the  efifect 
that  clearly  immersion  was  the  only  Scriptural  mode. 


THE  BAPTISTS  I4I 

In  this  discussion  in  the  London  church  everything  for  a 
time  was  inchoate  and  unsettled.  Some  held  to  successional 
and  believers'  baptism  and  scrupled  at  immersion;  others 
to  believers'  baptism;  others  to  infant  baptism  and  immer- 
sion, which  was  the  position  of  the  rubrics  of  the  Established 
Church.  But  there  emerges  from  this  discussion  the  Con- 
fession of  1644,  representing  eight  churches,  which  declared 
that  religious  liberty  is  the  right  of  every  Christian  man,  that 
baptism  should  be  administered  to  believers  only  and  that 
the  only  mode  is  immersion. 

It  is  not  clear  just  what  mode  of  baptism  the  General 
Baptists  who  put  forth  the  Confession  of  161 1  practiced. 
Probably  it  was  immersion,  but  by  1633  it  is  clear  that  both 
the  General  or  Arminian  Baptists  and  the  Particular  or 
Calvinistic  Baptists  were  moving  strongly  to  the  positions 
taken  in  the  Confession  of  1644,  —  Religious  Liberty,  Be- 
lievers' Baptism,  and  Immersion. 

Behind  all  this  movement  in  England  was  the  influence  of 
the  Anabaptism  of  the  Continent  dating  a  full  century 
earlier.  It  had  two  forms,  the  German  and  the  Swiss.  The 
German  was  more  socialistic  than  the  Swiss  and  the  ex- 
tremists of  the  party  had  brought  a  reproach  upon  the  whole 
movement  from  the  outrages  and  immorahties  of  Miinster. 
This  stigma  stiU  abides  in  Germany  and  even  Ranke  identi- 
fies the  religious  life  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  with  that 
of  Miinster.  This  identification  was  one  reason  for  the  bad 
odor  in  which  the  Baptists,  or  Anabaptists  as  they  are  called 
in  the  old  documents  of  New  England,  were  held.  Anabap- 
tism connoted  much  the  same  notions  as  Anarchism  does  to 
the  modern  mind. 

The  genius  who  rallied  the  scattered  fragments  of  Ana- 
baptism  after  the  disgrace  of  Miinster  was  Menno  Simons, 
whose  name  and  influence  are  perpetuated  in  the  Mennonite 
churches  of  Holland  and  of  this  country.    But  long  before 


142  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  English  movement  that  I  have  attempted  to  describe 
crystallized  in  the  Enghsh  Confessions  of  1611  and  1644, 
the  Anabaptists  of  the  Continent  were  maintaining  the  doc- 
trine of  religious  liberty,  of  believers'  baptism,  and  inclining 
toward  the  practice  of  immersion.  And  while  it  is  difficult 
to  trace  organized  churches  of  refugee  continental  Baptists 
in  England,  it  is  clear  that  the  influence  of  small  groups  was 
strong  upon  the  rising  tide  of  Baptist  sentiment  in  the  ranks 
of  the  Separatists. 

In  view  of  these  circumstances  it  is  not  strange  that  there 
should  have  been  an  infiltration  of  Baptist  ideas  into  the 
earliest  settlements  of  New  England. 

The  outstanding  illustration  of  this,  of  course,  is  the  career 
of  Roger  Williams.  John  Fiske  has  admirably  characterized 
the  character  of  Williams,  and  his  great  contribution  to  re- 
ligious and  political  thought  which  caused  Bancroft  to  class 
him  with  Newton  and  Kepler  as  a  benefactor  of  mankind. 
I  quote  his  comprehensive  and  judicial  paragraph: 

Among  all  the  Puritans  who  came  to  New  England  there  is  no  more 
interesting  figure  than  the  learned,  quick-witted,  pugnacious  Welsh- 
man, Roger  Williams.  He  was  over  fond  of  logical  subtleties  and  de- 
lighted in  controversy.  There  was  scarcely  any  subject  about  which 
he  did  not  wrangle,  from  the  sinfulness  of  persecution  to  the  propriety 
of  women  wearing  veils  in  churches.  Yet  with  all  this  love  of  contro- 
versy there  never  lived  a  more  gentle  and  kindly  soul.  Within  five 
years  from  the  settlement  of  Massachusetts  this  young  preacher  had 
announced  the  true  principles  of  religious  liberty  with  a  clearness  of 
insight  quite  remarkable  in  that  age.  .  .  .  The  views  of  Williams,  if 
logically  carried  out  involved  the  entire  separation  of  church  from 
State,  the  equal  protection  of  all  forms  of  religious  faith,  the  repeal 
of  all  laws  compelling  attendance  on  public  worship,  the  abolition  of 
tithes  and  of  all  forced  contributions  to  the  support  of  religion.  Such 
views  are  today  quite  generally  adopted  by  the  more  civilized  portions 
of  the  Protestant  world,  but  it  is  needless  to  say  that  they  were  not 
the  views  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  Massachusetts  or  elsewhere 
{The  Beginnings  oj  New  England,  pp.  114-115). 


THE  BAPTISTS  I43 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  remove  from  the 
authorities  of  Massachusetts  Bay  the  reproach  of  having 
banished  Williams  under  cruel  conditions.  Dr.  Henry  M. 
Dexter  is  probably  correct  in  his  contention  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Company  "  was  simply  a  private  corporation 
chartered  by  the  Government  for  the  purposes  of  fishing, 
real  estate  improvement,  and  general  commerce."  Un- 
doubtedly, the  Company  was  within  its  strictly  legal  rights 
in  banishing  Williams  or  anyone  else  to  whom  it  took  a 
dislike.  But  this  is  not  the  defence  of  the  banishment  put 
forth  by  contemporaries.  They  knew  well  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Company  was  far  more  than  a  trading  corpora- 
tion. The  promotion  of  a  profitable  stock  company  was  not 
at  all  the  aspect  of  the  enterprise  that  made  an  appeal  to 
twenty  thousand  EngHsh  Puritans.  The  impulse  that  led 
to  this  great  movement  and  continued  throughout  it  was 
well  expressed  by  the  Rev.  Francis  Higginson  when  he  said: 
"  We  go  to  practice  the  positive  part  of  church  reformation; 
and  propagate  the  Gospel  in  America  "  (Magnolia,  1629, 
III,  sec.  I,  p.  12).^  Bitterly  as  the  Baptists  suffered  from 
the  Massachusetts  Bay  theocracy,  they  do  it  the  credit  of 
not  attributing  to  it  narrow  secular  motives.  John  Cotton 
and  John  Winthrop  were  conscientious  men.  They  did  not 
apprehend  the  principle  of  religious  liberty.  They  only 
thought,  like  Saul  the  persecutor,  that  they  were  doing  God 
service. 

In  his  speech  on  the  dissolution  of  ParHament  in  1655, 
CromweU  described  the  fault  of  both  Presbyterians  and  Inde- 
pendents when  he  said: 

Is  it  ingenuous  to  ask  liberty  and  not  give  it  ?  What  greater  hypoc- 
risy for  those  who  were  oppressed  by  the  bishop  to  become  the  greatest 
oppressors  themselves  so  soon  as  their  yoke  was  removed  ? 

»  C£.  John  White  in  Planters  Plea. 


144  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

There  is  some  reason  for  doubting  whether  or  not  Williams 
at  the  time  of  his  conflict  with  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony- 
apprehended  the  principle  of  religious  liberty  as  clearly  as 
did  the  London  Baptists  of  1611.  Certainly  at  that  time  he 
made  no  statement  of  it  that  matches  the  admirable  clearness 
and  precision  of  the  paragraph  relating  to  this  matter  in  the 
creed  of  the  Smyth-Helwys  Church.  The  strong  probability 
is  that  though  one  of  the  grounds  of  his  offence  and  a  princi- 
pal accusation  brought  against  him  was  his  doctrine  that 
magistrates  might  not  punish  breaches  of  the  first  table  (and 
it  can  be  shown  that  each  of  the  points  of  conflict  with  the 
Massachusetts  authorities,  —  such  as  the  necessity  of  com- 
plete separation  of  the  colony  from  the  EngHsh  Church,  the 
illegality  of  the  patent,  the  impropriety  of  using  the  cross 
on  the  military  colors,  the  wrongfulness  of  compelling  attend- 
ance at  public  worship,  and  the  sacrilege  of  requiring  an 
unregenerate  person  to  take  the  oath,  —  are  more  or  less 
closely  connected  in  logic  with  his  central  principle  of  re- 
ligious liberty),  yet  the  clear  and  masterly  apprehension  of 
that  principle  which  we  see  in  The  Bloudy  Tencnt  of  Persecu- 
tion for  Cause  of  Conscience  was  the  product  of  the  growth 
of  his  ideas,  and  their  clarification  by  experience  and  reflec- 
tion. 

History  is  rendering  a  tardy  justice  to  the  memory  of 
WiUiams.  The  circumstance  that  the  leaders  of  the  Bay 
Colony  were  almost  without  exception  university  men, 
skilled  in  letters,  gave  them  a  marked  advantage  in  impress- 
ing their  views  upon  posterity.  The  defenders  of  Williams 
have  not  always  been  a  match  for  their  opponents,  but 
WiUiams  is  his  own  best  defender.  A  man  who  could  win 
and  hold  the  friendship  of  Sir  Edmund  Coke,  John  Winthrop, 
Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  John  Milton,  and  enjoyed  "  close  dis- 
course "  with  Oliver  Cromwell,  is  his  own  best  champion, 
and  the  new  appreciation  of  Williams's  personality  and  of 


THE  BAPTISTS  I45 

his  contribution  to  the  cause  of  human  liberty  has  come  from 
the  more  careful  study  of  his  own  works. 

The  literary  style  of  Roger  WiUiams,  like  that  of  John 
Cotton,  is  somewhat  crabbed  and  involved.  They  wrote 
with  haste,  and  poured  forth  their  ideas  upon  paper  without 
much  care  as  to  their  order  or  best  expression.  But  occasion- 
ally Williams,  in  writing  on  religious  liberty,  is  conscious  of 
wings  and  takes  an  almost  lyrical  flight.  For  example,  in 
speaking  of  the  armies  of  truth  he  frames  a  sentence  that  is 
worthy  of  Milton  or  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  "  The  armies  of 
Truth,"  he  says,  "  like  the  armies  of  the  Apocalypse,  must 
have  no  sword,  helmet,  breastplate,  shield,  or  horse,  but 
what  is  spiritual  and  of  a  heavenly  nature." 

The  church  which  Williams  gathered  in  Providence  has 
generally  been  regarded  as  the  first  Baptist  Church  organ- 
ized in  America,  March  16,  1639,  though  this  is  contested  by 
those  who  hold  that  the  church  organized  by  John  Clarke 
at  Newport  antedates  this.  It  is  certain  that  those  who  had 
been  Baptists  in  England  found,  on  emigrating  to  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  that  living  was  more  comfortable  in  Rhode  Island. 

We  should  not  omit  to  notice  that  Roger  Williams's  con- 
nection with  the  Providence  church  was  short.  He  parted 
with  the  company  he  had  gathered  because  of  his  doubts 
about  the  validity  of  his  own  baptism.  The  apostolic  suc- 
cession had  been  interrupted  and  apostolic  authority  had 
ceased.  In  this  curious  contention,  carrying  over  the  ideal 
of  apostolic  succession  to  baptism,  as  the  Established 
Church  in  England  had  appHed  it  to  the  ministry,  we  have 
the  echoes  in  America  of  the  discussion  which  at  that  very 
time  was  agitating  the  Jacob  Church  in  London. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  that  Henry  Jacob  subsequently 
emigrated  to  Virginia;  and  John  Lathrop  in  1634,  accom- 
panied by  about  thirty  members,  emigrated  to  New  England, 
settling  in  Scituate  and  subsequently  in  Barnstable.    This 


146  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

leaven  of  Anabaptism  frequently  reappears  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical history  of  New  England. 

The  bitter  animosity  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  theocracy 
to  the  Baptists  is  shown  by  the  following  statute  of  the 
General  Court,  November  23,  1644: 

For  as  much  as  experience  hath  plentifully  and  often  proved  that, 
since  the  first  rising  of  the  Anabaptists,  about  one  hundred  years  since, 
they  have  been  the  incendiaries  of  commonwealths  and  the  infectors 
of  persons  in  main  matter  of  religion,  and  the  troublers  of  churches  in 
all  places  where  they  have  been :  —  and  that  they  who  have  held  the 
baptizing  of  infants  unlawful  have  usually  held  other  errors  or  heresies 
together  therewith,  though  they  have  (as  other  heretics  use  to  do) 
concealed  the  same,  till  they  spied  out  a  fit  advantage  and  opportunity 
to  vent  them  by  way  of  question  of  scruple:  —  and  whereas  divers  of 
this  kind  have,  since  our  coming  into  New  England,  appeared  among 
ourselves,  some  whereof  have  (as  others  before  you)  denied  the  ordi- 
nance of  magistracy,  and  the  lawfulness  of  making  war,  and  others 
the  lawfulness  of  magistrates,  and  their  inspection  into  any  breach 
of  the  first  table:  —  which  opinions  if  they  should  be  connived  at  by 
us,  are  like  to  be  increased  among  us,  and  so  must  necessarily  bring 
guilt  upon  us,  infection  and  trouble  to  the  churches,  and  hazard  to 
the  whole  commonwealth. 

It  is  ordered  and  agreed  that  if  any  person  or  persons  within  this 
jurisdiction  either  openly  condemn  or  oppose  the  baptizing  of  infants, 
or  go  about  secretly  to  seduce  others  from  the  approbation  or  use 
thereof,  or  shall  purposely  depart  the  congregation  at  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  ordinance,  or  shall  deny  the  ordinance  of  magistracy  or 
their  lawful  right  or  authority  to  make  war,  or  to  punish  the  outward 
breaches  of  the  first  table,  and  shall  appear  to  the  Court  wilfully  and 
obstinately  to  continue  therein  after  due  time  and  means  of  conviction, 
every  such  person  or  persons  shall  be  banished  from  the  colony. 

The  reasons  for  this  extreme  hostility  of  the  Bay  Colony 
leaders  to  the  Baptists  are  probably  threefold. 

In  the  first  place,  as  I  have  already  suggested,  the  Baptists 
were  identified  in  the  public  thought  with  the  Munster 
fanatics.  The  term  Anabaptist  came  to  have  much  the  same 
connotation  we  now  attach  to  the  label  Anarchist.    It  was 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 47 

a  general  term  of  opprobrium.  It  is  now  clearly  established 
that  some  at  least  of  the  Miinster  party,  so  far  from  being 
in  any  true  sense  Baptists,  came  to  practice  infant  baptism. 
But  the  German  and  Swiss  reformers  took  little  pains  to 
examine  or  treat  fairly  the  men  who  carried  their  own  prin- 
ciples further  than  they  desired. 

In  the  second  place,  the  denial  of  infant  baptism  undoubt- 
edly involved  a  most  insidious  and  effective  attack  upon  the 
Massachusetts  theocracy.  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbet,  minister 
in  Lynn  and  afterward  in  Ipswich,  in  a  letter  to  Increase 
Mather,  states  this  clearly.    He  says: 

And  I  add  theyr  very  principle  of  makeing  infant  Baptisms  a  nullity, 
it  doth  make  at  once  all  our  churches,  &  our  religious  Civill  state  and 
polity,  and  all  the  officers  &  members  thereof  to  be  unbaptized  &  to 
bee  no  Christians  &  so  our  churches  to  bee  no  churches;  &  so  we  have 
no  regular  power  to  choose  Deputies  for  any  General  Court,  nor  to 
choose  any  Magistrates  {Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  Vol.  XXXVIII,  p.  291). 

A  third  reason  for  this  hostility  to  the  Baptists  was  that 
the  idea  that  a  sound  body  politic  could  possibly  be  built  on 
the  principle  of  religious  hberty  was  totally  inconceivable 
to  the  Bay  Colony  people.  The  Half-Way  Covenant  was 
the  utmost  concession  that  could  be  made,  and  that  almost 
rent  apart  the  theocracy.  Furthermore,  some  of  the  earlier 
experiences  of  the  Providence  Plantations  with  fanatics  and 
disturbers  were  not  such  as  to  commend  the  doctrine  of 
religious  liberty  for  which  the  Baptists  stood. 

The  Newport  church  appears  to  have  been  more  zealous 
and  to  have  been  led  by  abler  men  than  the  Providence 
church.  John  Clarke,  the  pastor,  was  an  educated  man  and 
had  some  property,  Mark  Lucar,  a  leading  member,  had 
been  prominent  in  the  Jacob-Lathrop  church  in  London  and 
Obadiah  Holmes  appears  to  have  been  educated  at  Oxford. 

In  1649  ^^  attempt  was  made  by  these  men  to  organize 
a  church  at  Seekonk,  now  Rehoboth.    Roger  Williams  in  a 


148  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

letter  to  Governor  Winthrop  refers  to  this  movement  in 
these  words : 

At  Seekonk  a  great  many  have  lately  concurred  with  Mr.  John 
Clarke,  and  our  Providence  men,  about  the  point  of  a  new  baptism 
and  the  manner  by  dipping;  and  Mr.  John  Clarke  hath  been  there 
lately  and  hath  dipped  them.  I  believe  their  practice  comes  nearer 
to  the  first  practice  of  our  great  Founder,  Christ  Jesus,  than  other 
practices  of  religion  do  {Narrag.  Club,  Vol.  VI,  p.  188). 

Seekonk  was  within  the  territory  of  the  Plymouth  Colony, 
but  the  Massachusetts  Bay  people,  although  they  could  not 
deal  with  the  matter  directly,  sent  a  note  to  Plymouth 
(October,  1649)  ^^  which  they  said: 

Particularly  we  imderstand  that  within  this  few  weeks  there  have 
been  at  Seakunke  thirteen  or  fourteen  persons  rebaptized  (a  swift 
progress  in  one  town),  yet  we  hear  not  if  any  effectual  restriction  is 
entended  thereabouts.  Let  it  not,  we  pray  you,  seem  presumption 
in  us  to  mind  you  hereof,  nor  that  we  earnestly  intreate  you  to  take 
care  as  well  of  the  suppressing  of  errors  as  of  the  maintenance  of  truth 
{Mass.  Col.  Records,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  74). 

But  the  heresy  could  not  be  kept  out  of  the  Bay  Colony 
any  more  than  out  of  Plymouth.  Referring  to  the  Ana- 
baptists in  the  Colony  in  1646,  Gov.  Winslow  said,  "  We 
have  some  Uving  among  us;  nay  some  in  our  churches  of 
that  judgment  "  {Magnolia,  II,  p.  459). 

The  hostihty  to  the  Baptists  soon  had  three  concrete 
manifestations  in  the  Bay  Colony.  The  first  was  the  whip- 
ping of  Obadiah  Holmes. 

In  July,  165 1,  the  Massachusetts  authorities  learned  that 
Clarke  and  Holmes  and  Crandall  from  Newport  were  on  a 
visit  to  a  fellow  Baptist  in  Lynn,  Wilham  Witter.  It  ap- 
pears that  while  the  visitors  were  holding  a  service  in  Wit- 
ter's  house  they  were  arrested  and  subsequently  removed 
to  Boston.    Clarke  and  Crandall  escaped  with  heavy  fines, 


THE  BAPTISTS  I49 

but  Holmes  was  imprisoned  until  September,  when  he  was 
publicly  flogged  on  his  bare  back.  "  It  was  grievous,  as 
the  spectators  said,  the  man  striking  with  all  his  strength 
with  a  three-corded  whip,  yea  spitting  on  his  hands  three 
times." 

A  second  specific  act  of  hostility  was  the  deposition  of  the 
first  President  of  Harvard  College,  Henry  Dunster,  because 
he  had  espoused  Baptist  views. 

Henry  Dunster  was  matriculated  at  Magdalene  College, 
Cambridge.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  John  Harvard  at 
Emmanuel  College  was  for  two  years  a  fellow  student  at 
Cambridge  with  Dunster.  Cotton  Mather  speaks  of  Dun- 
ster as  having  exercised  his  ministry  in  England.  Dunster 
arrived  in  Boston  toward  the  latter  end  of  the  summer  of 
1640,  at  the  age  of  twenty  or  twenty-one.  Soon  after  his 
arrival  he  purchased  a  property  in  Boston  at  the  northeast 
corner  of  Court  Street  and  Washington  Street  —  where  the 
Ames  Building  now  stands  —  but  he  had  scarcely  settled  in 
his  new  home  before  he  was  called  to  the  presidency  of  the 
college  at  Cambridge  (August,  1640).  "  Mr.  Henry  Dunster 
is  now  President  of  this  college,"  wrote  Captain  Johnson  in 
his  Wonder-Working  Providence,  "  fitted  from  the  Lord  for 
the  work,  and  by  those  who  have  skill  that  way,  reported 
to  be  an  able  Proficient  in  both  Hebrew,  Greek,  and 
Latin  languages,  an  Orthodox  Preacher  of  the  truths  of 
Christ,  very  powerful  through  his  blessing  to  move  the 
affections." 

Harvard  was  only  a  school  when  Dunster  took  charge. 
He  is  usually  reckoned  as  its  first  president,  since  the  man 
who  had  had  charge  for  two  years  was  dismissed  for  un- 
worthy conduct.  Dunster  served  as  President  for  fourteen 
years,  and  Quincy  says  of  him:  "  He  united  in  himself  the 
character  of  both  patron  and  President,  for  poor  as  he  was, 
he  contributed  at  a  time  of  its  utmost  need  one  hundred 


150  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

acres  of  land  towards  its  support;  besides  rendering  to  it, 
for  a  succession  of  years,  a  series  of  official  services,  well- 
directed,  unwearied  and  altogether  inestimable." 

President  Dunster  was  apparently  led  by  the  treatment 
accorded  Clarke  and  Crandall  and  Holmes  to  examine  the 
matter  of  baptism  for  himself.  He  found,  as  he  says,  that 
"  All  instituted  Gospel  worship  hath  some  express  word  of 
Scripture  but  Paedo-baptism  hath  none."  In  October,  1654, 
Dunster  was  compelled  to  resign  the  presidency,  after  having 
been  indicted  by  the  Grand  Jury  for  "  disturbing  the  ordi- 
nance of  infant  baptism  in  the  Cambridge  Church."  Cotton 
Mather  says:  —  "  His  unhappy  entanglement  in  the  snares 
of  Anabaptism  filled  the  overseers  with  uneasy  fears,  lest 
the  students  by  his  means  should  come  to  be  ensnared." 
Quincy,  in  his  History  of  Harvard  College,  says  of  Dunster: 
"  No  man  ever  questioned  his  talents,  learning,  exemplary 
fidelity,  and  usefulness."  Dunster  removed  to  Scituate  in 
the  Plymouth  Colony,  where  he  became  the  successor  of 
Chauncy,  and  Chauncy  became  his  successor  at  Harvard. 
He  died  February  27,  1659. 

From  one  point  of  view  the  Harvard  Overseers  were  hardly 
more  fortunate  in  the  successor  of  Dunster.  They  elected 
Rev.  Charles  Chauncy,  the  pastor  at  Scituate,  fellow  of 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  England.  He  had  come  to  Ply- 
mouth from  England  in  1638.  It  was  known  that  he  held 
to  baptism  by  immersion  only.  Some  of  the  Plymouth  people 
worked  to  secure  Mr.  Chauncy  as  assistant  pastor,  and  gave 
him  the  liberty  of  baptizing  "  as  he  was  persuaded,"  provided 
that  those  who  desired  "  to  be  otherwise  baptized"  by  another 
minister  should  have  this  privilege.  Mr.  Chauncy  would  not 
agree  to  this  plan,  and  removed  to  Scituate.  The  Scituate 
church  appears  to  have  sheltered  all  parties.  Some  held  to 
inmiersion  only,  some  to  adult  immersion  only,  and  some  to 
immersion  of  infants  as  well  as  adults. 


THE  BAPTISTS  IS  I 

A  third  illustration  of  intolerance  was  the  attitude  of  the 
theocracy  toward  the  organization  of  a  Baptist  church  in 
Boston.  The  movement  began  in  Charlestown  and  appears 
to  have  had  the  sympathy  of  President  Dunster.  The  story 
of  the  fines  and  imprisonments  decreed  upon  this  faithful 
group  has  often  been  told.  For  a  time  the  little  band  had 
its  home  in  Thomas  Gould's  house  on  Noddle's  Island  in 
the  harbor,  now  East  Boston,  but  in  1669,  some  of  the  mem- 
bers acquired  a  small  house,  then  building,  on  Salem  Street, 
Boston,  probably  with  a  view  of  having  it  transferred  to 
the  church.  The  church  bought  the  house  and  the  land  on 
which  it  stood  February  9,  1670,  but  the  stir  which  this 
action  aroused  led  the  General  Court  to  enact  a  law  the  fol- 
lowing May,  prohibiting  the  erection  and  use  of  a  house  of 
public  worship  without  the  consent  of  the  freemen  of  the 
town  and  license  of  the  County  Court,  or  special  order  of 
the  General  Court,  on  penalty  of  forfeiture  of  house  and 
land  to  the  county. 

The  Baptists  appear  not  to  have  attempted  to  occupy  this 
house  before  February,  1680.  It  seemed  to  them  that  they 
had  a  perfect  right  to  do  so,  notwithstanding  the  colonial 
law,  for  Charles  II,  in  the  interests  of  Episcopacy,  had 
directed  the  colonial  authorities  to  allow  all  Protestants 
liberty  of  conscience.  The  Court,  however,  acting  upon  the 
colonial  law,  ordered  the  marshal  to  nail  up  the  doors  of  the 
Baptist  meeting-house.  The  original  order  is  preserved  in 
the  First  Baptist  Church  of  Boston.  The  royal  decree, 
however,  proved  stronger  than  the  colonial  law,  and  after 
suffering  some  further  annoyance  the  little  band  was  per- 
mitted to  use  its  property. 

John  Russell,  who  became  the  second  pastor  of  the  church 
in  July,  1679,  following  Thomas  Gould  who  died  October, 
1675,  wrote  an  account  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Boston  Baptist 
Church  which  was  printed  in  England,  with  a  preface  signed 


152  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

by  the  leading  pastors  of  the  English  Calvinistic  Baptists. 
But  during  the  forty  years  that  had  elapsed  since  the  banish- 
ment of  Roger  Williams  from  Massachusetts  Bay  in  October, 
1635,  great  things  had  happened  in  England.  The  Long 
Parliament,  the  Civil  War,  the  Commonwealth,  the  execu- 
tion of  Charles  I,  the  Protectorate  of  Cromwell,  and  the 
restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  had  followed  in  rapid  succession. 
England  had  been  successively  High  Church  Episcopalian 
under  Laud,  Presbyterian  under  the  Long  Parliament  and 
the  Solemn  League,  Independent  and  Baptist  under  Crom- 
well, and  Episcopalian  again  under  Charles  II.  The  Pres- 
byterians and  Independents  and  Baptists  had  undergone 
the  suffering  and  humiliation  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day, 
1662,  when  two  thousand  of  the  ablest  and  most  saintly  of 
the  English  pastors  had  been  deprived  at  a  stroke  of  their 
pulpits.  Whatever  the  English  Independents  of  1635  might 
have  been  in  regard  to  toleration,  in  1680  they  were  broad- 
minded  and  charitable.  The  English  Independents  had 
moved  on  to  a  fuU  appreciation  and  acceptance  of  Roger 
Williams's  great  doctrine;  the  New  England  Independents 
"  stuck,"  to  use  John  Robinson's  phrase,  where  their  fathers 
had  left  them.  These  London  ministers  show  in  this  preface 
to  Russell's  tract  their  amazement  that  those  who  had 
come  to  the  New  World  to  escape  persecution  should 
persecute  their  brethren.  "  For  one  Protestant  Congre- 
gation," they  say,  "  to  persecute  another,  where  is  no 
pretence  to  infallibility  in  the  decision  of  all  contro- 
versies, seems  much  more  unreasonable  than  the  cruelties 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  towards  them  that  depart  from 
their  superstitions." 

The  English  Independents  had  advanced  much  further 
toward  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  conscience  than  their 
Massachusetts  brethren.  The  Bay  Colony  represented  a 
type  of  thought  that  prevailed  in  England  two  generations 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 53 

before,  and  that  type  had  been  perpetuated  in  New  Eng- 
land, while  the  Independents  of  Old  England  had  advanced 
toward  modern  ideas. 

There  were  at  least  two  incidents  that  contributed  toward 
a  different  attitude  of  the  standing  order  as  to  the  Baptists 
at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  William  Turner, 
who  was  one  of  the  group  of  Charlestown  Baptists  that  or- 
ganized the  church  on  Noddle's  Island,  greatly  distinguished 
himself  in  defence  of  the  Colony.  In  1670  Turner  was  in 
prison,  though  Allen  and  Oxenbridge  of  the  First  Church 
and  all  the  deputies  in  the  Legislature  voted  for  his  release, 
but  the  magistrates  in  the  Governor's  Council  were  set 
against  it.  "  Above  thirty  weeks,"  he  says,  "  I  have  been 
lying  in  prison,  to  the  possible  ruin  of  my  headless  family. 
I  am  ready  to  serve  this  country  to  the  utmost  of  my  abihty, 
in  all  civil  things.  In  faith  and  order  God  alone  can  satisfy 
a  poor  soul." 

In  the  year  1675,  when  King  PhiUp  launched  his  con- 
spiracy against  the  English  settlers,  Turner,  mindful  of  the 
promise  he  had  made  in  prison  five  years  before  to  serve  the 
country,  offered  to  the  magistrates  to  raise  a  company  among 
his  friends  and  acquaintances  to  fight  the  Indians.  At  first 
Turner's  offer  was  refused,  but  the  next  year  when  the  for- 
tunes of  the  war  were  turning  against  the  settlers,  and  the 
flames  of  burning  buildings  filled  the  sky  from  Casco  Bay 
to  Stonington,  the  magistrates  came  to  Turner,  begged  him 
to  renew  his  offer  and  raise  his  company.  Turner  recruited 
his  company  mainly  from  the  members  and  adherents  of  the 
First  Baptist  Church.  The  officers  were  members  of  the 
church.  Elder  Drinker  was  lieutenant,  Philip  Squire  ser- 
geant, and  Thomas  Skinner  clerk.  There  are  thirteen  names 
in  the  list  of  the  Company  he  sent  to  Boston  which  corre- 
spond with  the  names  of  the  members  of  the  First  Baptist 
Chiurch,  and  there  are  twice  as  many  more  in  this  list  of  men 


154  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

whose  mothers,  wives,  or  sisters  belonged  to  the  Baptist 
Church. 

On  P^bruary  21,  1676,  Captain  Turner  began  his  march  to 
Northampton.  King  PhiHp's  headquarters  were  at  North- 
field,  and  he  had  another  camp  at  the  Falls  of  the  Connecti- 
cut, which  bear  today  the  name  of  the  doughty  Baptist 
captain.  Turner's  Falls.  The  surprise  that  Captain  Turner 
sprang  at  this  point  is  a  notable  episode  in  New  England 
history  and  even  Increase  Mather  was  enthusiastic  in  his 
recognition  of  the  brave  exploit. 

A  second  incident  that  contributed  to  the  good  feeling 
between  the  Boston  Baptists  and  their  Congregational 
brethren  was  the  attitude  of  the  Mathers  toward  the  Bap- 
tists at  the  ordination  of  the  Rev.  Elisha  Callender  as  pastor 
of  the  Baptist  Church.  At  this  service  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship  was  given  by  the  aged  Increase  Mather,  and  his 
son  Cotton  Mather  preached  the  ordination  sermon.  The 
appreciation  of  this  courtesy  of  the  Mathers  on  the  part  of 
Thomas  HoUis,  a  wealthy  London  Baptist,  led  him  to  direct 
his  benevolence  to  Harvard  College.  The  Hollis  family 
contributed  the  largest  amount  to  the  funds  of  Harvard 
College  —  about  six  thousand  pounds  —  that  it  received 
from  any  one  family  until  well  along  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  We  must  remember  that  money  was  then  worth 
about  five  times  its  value  today. 

II 

Possibly  the  Half-way  Covenant  has  sometimes  been  over- 
emphasized as  a  principal  cause  of  the  Unitarian  separation. 
The  First  Church  of  Boston,  which  strenuously  opposed  the 
covenant  and  called  John  Davenport  from  New  Haven  to 
become  its  pastor  in  order  that  that  valiant  defender  of 
orthodoxy  might  lead  in  Boston  against  the  weaker  brethren, 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 55 

ultimately  became  Unitarian,  while  the  Third  Church,  the 
Old  South,  which  was  organized  in  support  of  the  Half-way 
Covenant,  was  the  only  one  of  the  Boston  Congregational 
churches  that  did  not  become  Unitarian. 

The  discussions,  however,  that  centred  about  the  Cove- 
nant inevitably  had  one  effect.  They  called  fresh  attention 
to  the  reasonableness  and  scripturalness  of  the  Baptist  po- 
sition, that  if  baptism  had  any  such  close  relation  to  church 
membership  as  all  parties  believed  it  had,  only  those  who 
gave  some  evidence  of  possessing  the  Christian  character 
should  be  baptized.  The  circumstance,  however,  that  the 
position  of  the  conservatives  endorsed  the  essential  correct- 
ness of  the  Baptists,  did  not  make  the  Baptists  any  more 
tolerable  to  some  of  the  standing  order.  Still,  in  almost 
every  community  there  were  some  who,  however  much  they 
might  dislike  the  Baptists,  were  broad-minded  and  fair- 
minded  enough  to  see  that  the  acknowledged  evils  of  the 
Half-way  Covenant  were  a  lurid  commentary  on  the  peril 
of  departing  from  the  principle  that  the  true  basis  of  church 
membership  must  be  found  in  personal  Christian  experience. 

The  most  important  single  factor  in  promoting  the  growth 
of  the  denomination  was  the  Great  Awakening  itself.  In 
1740,  the  third  generation  of  the  settlement  of  New  England, 
the  religious  impulse  that  a  century  before  had  created  the 
theocracy  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  had  nearly  died 
out.  The  causes  of  this  declension  have  been  sufficiently 
indicated.  The  second  Baptist  Church  in  Boston,  now  the 
Warren  Avenue  Church,  was  not  formed  until  1743,  as  a 
result  of  the  opposition  of  the  Rev.  Jeremy  Condy,  pastor  of 
the  First  Church,  to  the  Great  Awakening,  as  the  Edwards- 
Whitefield  Revival  came  to  be  known.  The  Baptist  Church 
at  Kittery,  Maine,  organized  in  1682,  was  broken  up  by 
fines  and  imprisonment,  and  some  of  its  prominent  members, 
emigrating  to  South  Carolina,  gathered  in  what  is  now  the 


156  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

First  Church  of  Charleston,  the  only  Baptist  church  founded 
in  the  Southern  colonies  in  the  seventeenth  century.  In  1 765, 
the  Rev.  Hezekiah  Smith,  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  founded 
the  First  Church,  Haverhill,  the  oldest  Baptist  church  north 
of  Boston. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  Great  Awakening  was  to  run 
a  line  of  division  through  New  England  Congregationalists, 
separating  the  formal  adherents  of  the  churches  from  those 
in  whose  Uves  religion  was  a  vital  experience.  The  majority 
of  the  Congregational  ministers  and  churches  opposed  the 
revival,  and  it  must  be  said  in  fairness  that  the  eccentricities 
and  fanaticism  that  developed  in  certain  places  gave  some 
warrant  for  the  antagonism.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  but 
feel,  as  we  read  the  records  and  journals  of  the  period,  that 
a  substantial  reason  for  the  opposition  was  the  very  formality 
and  spiritual  deadness  into  which  many  of  the  churches  and 
members  had  sunk.  The  Baptist  churches  also  shared  in 
this  religious  declension,  but  their  insistence  on  a  regenerate 
membership  had  prevented  their  reaping  the  harvest  of 
evil  that  the  Congregational  churches  had  gathered  from 
the  Half-way  Covenant.  The  Baptists  at  first  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  enthusiastic  about  the  religious  movement, 
but  gradually  they  came  into  a  warmer  sympathy  with  it. 
The  Congregational  churches  that  supported  the  revival 
came  to  be  known  as  New  Lights.  And  between  the  New 
Light  Congregational  and  the  Baptist  churches  there  rapidly 
developed  sympathies  and  affinities  which  led  to  some  of  the 
most  interesting  developments  of  the  century. 

In  some  cases  the  New  Light  members  of  Congregational 
churches  sought  membership  in  Baptist  churches.  In  other 
instances  they  formed  New  Light  congregations  alongside 
the  old  Congregational  churches. 

The  religious  history  of  Middleborough,  Massachusetts, 
is  typical.    Here  Isaac  Backus  became  pastor  of  the  New 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 57 

Light  Congregational  church.  But  soon  various  questions 
asserted  themselves.  What  was  the  Scriptural  authority  for 
infant  baptism  ?  What  is  the  status  of  the  baptized  child 
in  relation  to  the  church  ?  What  is  the  standing  in  the 
church  of  those  who,  though  they  were  baptized  in  infancy, 
unmistakably  are  not  Hving  a  Christian  life  ?  Such  ques- 
tions greatly  troubled  Mr.  Backus.  At  one  time  he  preached 
a  sermon  repudiating  infant  baptism  and  advocating  immer- 
sion. A  few  days  later  he  withdrew  from  these  positions, 
but  ultimately,  after  two  years  during  which  he  was  "  much 
tossed  in  his  mind,"  he  became  a  convinced  advocate  of  the 
Baptist  principles.  The  course  of  Mr.  Backus  made  a 
serious  division  in  the  church  and  five  councils  reviewed  the 
situation.  At  length  Mr.  Backus  became  the  founder  of  the 
First  Baptist  Church  in  Middleborough,  of  which  he  was 
pastor  for  fifty  years. 

Backus,  though  a  man  of  excellent  parts,  had  not  enjoyed 
a  college  training,  but  he  so  improved  his  opportunities  for 
general  culture  that  his  History  of  the  Baptists,  originally 
published  in  three  considerable  volumes,  is  one  of  the  stand- 
ard works  for  the  religious  history  of  New  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  George  Bancroft  characterizes 
Backus  as  "  one  of  the  most  exact  of  our  New  England 
historians  "  and  his  work  as  marked  by  "  ingenuousness, 
clear  discernment,  and  determined  accuracy." 

In  other  towns  there  was  no  such  discussion  as  at  Middle- 
borough.  The  New  Light  congregation  at  once  or  gradually 
became  a  Baptist  church. 

In  the  development  of  the  denomination  after  the  Great 
Awakening  there  were  three  outstanding  events. 

I.   The  gradual  achievement  of  religious  liberty. 

From  the  very  beginning  the  General  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts had  provided  for  the  support  of  the  Christian  ministry 
by  taxing  all  the  people.    By  the  law  of  1638  it  was  provided 


158  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

that  "  every  inhabitant  who  should  not  voluntarily  con- 
tribute to  all  charges,  both  in  church  and  commonwealth, 
proportionately  according  to  his  ability,  should  be  compelled 
thereto  by  assessment." 

The  second  charter  of  Massachusetts  (1691)  though  grant- 
ing equal  Uberty  of  conscience  to  all  but  Roman  Catholics, 
required  each  town  to  have  a  minister  who  should  be  sup- 
ported by  public  taxation,  and  in  17 18  the  General  Court 
authorized  a  tax  for  building  and  repair  of  meeting-houses. 

In  1728,  however,  Baptists  and  Quakers  were  exempted 
from  poll  taxes  for  the  support  of  ministers  and  it  became 
illegal  to  take  their  bodies  in  execution  to  satisfy  any  such 
ministerial  rate  or  tax  assessed  upon  their  estates  or  faculty, 
"  provided  that  such  persons  do  usually  attend  the  meetings 
of  their  respective  Societies  assembling  upon  the  Lord's  Day 
for  the  worship  of  God,  and  that  they  live  within  five  miles 
of  the  place  of  such  meeting."  The  names  of  the  Baptists 
and  Quakers  who  might  thus  escape  the  poll  tax  were  ascer- 
tained by  the  County  Court,  which  through  its  clerk  sent 
lists  of  the  names  to  the  assessors  of  each  town  or  precinct. 
Backus  in  his  quaint  manner  remarks  about  this  legislation: 

Here  we  may  see  that  arbitrary  power  is  always  the  same  nature, 
in  every  age,  and  every  country.  "  Go  ye,  serve  the  Lord:  only  let 
your  flocks  and  herds  be  stayed,"  said  Pharaoh.  Let  their  polls  be 
exempted,  but  their  estates  and  faculties  be  taxed,  said  Massachusetts. 
Herein  they  imitated  him ;  but  in  two  other  points  they  went  beyond 
him.  "  Go  not  very  far  away,"  said  Pharaoh;  Go  but  five  miles,  said 
Massachusetts;  though  many  of  their  own  parishioners,  from  that 
day  to  this,  must  go  much  further  than  that  to  meeting.  Neither  did 
Pharaoh  require  a  list  of  the  people  upon  oath  as  these  did  (Backus, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  577-578). 

That  year  the  imprisonment  of  two  Episcopalians,  twenty- 
eight  Baptists,  and  two  Quakers  for  refusing  to  pay  minis- 
terial taxes  on  their  estates  led  to  an  appeal  to  the  Assembly, 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 59 

which  added  an  act  (November  19,  1728)  to  exempt  estates 
and  faculties  as  well  as  polls  "  under  the  same  conditions  and 
limitations  as  they  were  before,"  but  these  exemptions  were 
to  continue  only  to  May,  1733. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  recount  the  minute  changes  in 
exemptions  and  time  limits  under  which  the  exemptions  were 
valid  that  were  enacted  by  successive  General  Courts.  The 
topic  of  the  rights  of  Baptists,  Quakers,  and  Episcopalians 
was  always  under  discussion.  In  some  places,  as  at  Stur- 
bridge,  the  laws  were  executed  with  great  harshness  and 
cruelty;   in  other  towns  the  practice  was  more  lenient. 

The  action  of  the  General  Court  in  1752,  and  afterwards 
in  1757,  in  requiring  three  other  Baptist  churches  to  testify 
that  the  church  whose  members  sought  exemption  certifi- 
cates belonged  to  their  denomination,  was  regarded  as  so 
unjust  that  steps  were  taken  and  money  collected  to  carry 
the  matter  to  England. 

Most  of  the  Baptist  churches  were  connected  with  the 
Warren  Association,  and  the  injustice  of  the  law  and  the 
abuses  under  it  were  so  exasperating  that  a  Committee  on 
Grievances  was  appointed,  of  which  Isaac  Backus  was  chair- 
man for  ten  years  from  1772. 

In  1774,  Backus  addressed  a  letter  to  Samuel  Adams  in 
which,  arguing  from  the  ground  on  which  Adams  was  pro- 
testing against  British  oppression,  namely,  that  it  was  essen- 
tial to  liberty  that  representation  and  taxation  should  go 
together,  Backus  made  the  point  that  since  people  do  not 
vote  for  their  representatives  in  the  legislature  on  account 
of  their  ecclesiastical  quahfications,  these  representatives 
had  no  right  to  impose  ecclesiastical  taxes.  The  taxes  laid 
by  the  British  Parliament  on  America  are  not  more  contrary 
to  civil  freedom  than  these  Massachusetts  taxes  are  to  the 
very  nature  of  liberty  of  conscience  which  is  an  essential 
article  in  our  charter. 


l6o  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

When  the  opposition  to  British  oppression  came  to  a  head 
in  1774,  and  a  meeting  of  the  representatives  of  the  colonies 
was  summoned  in  Philadelphia,  September  5,  1774,  the 
Baptists  were  well  represented  in  the  New  England  dele- 
gation. Among  them  was  President  Manning  of  Brown 
University,  Dr.  Stephen  Gano,  and  Isaac  Backus.  The 
presentation  of  Baptist  grievances,  however,  made  so  little 
impression  that  John  Adams  is  reported  to  have  declared 
that  a  change  might  as  well  be  expected  in  the  solar  system 
as  that  the  great  Puritan  State  would  aboHsh  its  ecclesias- 
tical laws. 

The  Baptists  incidentally  suffered  at  this  time  in  a  new 
way,  for  their  protest  against  the  injustice  with  which  they 
were  treated  gave  color  to  the  charge  of  their  enemies  that 
they  made  their  own  grievances  more  prominent  than  those 
of  the  whole  people.  Backus  met  this  charge  in  his  address 
to  the  Congress  of  Massachusetts,  in  which  he  said: 

The  Baptist  churches  in  this  Province  as  heartily  unite  with  their 
countrymen  in  this  cause  as  any  denomination  in  the  land,  but  they 
denied  the  right  of  the  General  Court  to  impose  upon  Baptists  the 
burden  of  a  ministerial  tax  as  they  denied  the  right  of  the  British 
Government  to  impose  on  the  colonists  the  tax  of  three  pence  in  a 
pound  on  tea! 

The  only  immediate  modification  of  the  law  pressing  so 
severely  on  Baptists  which  was  accomphshed  by  the  War  of 
Independence  —  that  great  outburst  of  resistance  to  measures 
that  the  colonists  regarded  as  oppressive  —  was  that  the 
revised  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  asserted  "  the  right' 
and  duty  of  the  legislature  to  authorize  and  require  the 
several  towns,  parishes,  precincts,  and  other  bodies  politic, 
or  religious  societies,  to  make  provision  at  their  own  expense 
for  the  institution  of  the  pubHc  worship  of  God."  The 
actual  working  of  this  provision  was  that  where  Baptists 
were  a  majority  they  might  elect  a  Baptist  as  minister  of 


THE  BAPTISTS  l6l 

the  town.  In  reality  it  gave  to  the  majority  of  Massachu- 
setts citizens  the  right  which  the  Princes  of  Germany  ac- 
quired under  the  famous  principle  known  as  cujus  regio,  ejus 
religio. 

The  situation  which  this  compromise  created  theoretically 
made  the  position  of  the  Baptists  somewhat  easier.  Certainly 
it  gave  their  standing  in  the  community  a  political  and  social 
recognition  which  up  to  this  time  they  had  lacked.  A  de- 
nomination could  not  be  treated  as  a  company  of  fanatics 
who  were  to  be  unclassed,  when  they  had  a  legal  right,  if 
they  could  muster  sufficient  adherents,  to  elect  from  their 
own  number  the  minister  of  the  town.  But  this  was  not  the 
goal  the  Baptists  had  set  before  themselves.  In  fact,  they 
showed  as  little  appreciation  of  governmental  recognition  as 
the  French  Protestants  manifested  when  Catherine  de 
Medici  flung  them  a  morsel  of  royal  recognition.  This  law 
was  in  no  sense  the  goal  of  the  Baptists.  They  did  not  want 
to  rule  the  New  England  towns  on  any  such  terms.  To  their 
thinking  it  would  be  exactly  as  unjust  for  them  to  rule  their 
neighbors  as  it  was  for  their  neighbors  to  rule  them. 

Practically,  however,  this  new  legislation  did  almost 
nothing  to  ameliorate  their  condition.  Persecutions  did  not 
cease.  Ministerial  taxes  were  assessed  and  goods  were 
attached.  A  ciuious  development  took  place  at  what  is 
now  Arhngton.  A  Baptist  church  was  organized  there  in 
1 781,  and  a  pastor  was  secured  in  1783.  The  members  of 
the  Baptist  Church  were  assessed  for  the  support  of  the 
Congregational  ministers.  Thereupon  the  Baptists  sued 
the  assessors  and  obtained  a  judgment  in  the  County  Court, 
which  was  reversed  in  the  Supreme  Court.  It  was  suggested, 
however,  by  one  of  the  attorneys  in  the  case  that  the  Bap- 
tists might  sue  the  money  they  had  paid  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  assessors  and  apply  their  ministerial  taxes  to  the  support 
of  their  own  minister.    This  was  actually  done  at  Arlington 


1 62  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  the  precedent  was  followed  in  other  places,  but  Backus 
and  the  other  leaders  regarded  this  course  as  indefensible. 

The  number  of  churches  that  resorted  to  this  device  is 
not  readily  obtainable,  but  it  must  have  been  considerable. 
In  1811,  Chief  Justice  Parsons  decided  that  a  religious  society 
must  be  incorporated  by  law  to  have  the  privilege  of  this 
rebate. 

A  great  petition  signed  by  many  thousands  of  persons  of 
every  cast  of  religious  doctrine  was  presented  to  the  Legis- 
lature, requesting  that  the  existing  laws  should  be  "so 
revised  and  amended  that  all  denominations  of  Christians 
may  be  exempt  from  being  taxed  for  the  support  of  religious 
teachers,  excepting  those  whose  ministrations  they  volun- 
tarily attend."  This  was  the  occasion  when  the  famous 
John  Leland  addressed  the  House.  "  The  petitioners  pray," 
he  said,  "  for  the  right  of  going  to  heaven  in  that  way  which 
they  beheve  is  most  direct,  and  shall  this  be  denied  them?" 
In  answering  the  objection  that  to  grant  complete  religious 
liberty  would  be  to  affront  religion  and  bring  unknown  judg- 
ments on  the  State,  he  said:  "  Since  the  Revolution,  all  the 
old  States,  except  two  or  three  in  New  England,  have  es- 
tablished rehgious  liberty  on  its  true  bottom;  and  yet  they 
are  not  sunk  with  earthquakes  or  destroyed  with  fire  and 
brimstone." 

Looking  back  the  comparatively  short  distance  of  less 
than  a  century,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  Massachu- 
setts should  have  fallen  so  far  behind  the  general  movement 
of  the  age  and  have  been  so  reluctant  to  come  to  an  act  of 
common  justice.  The  innate  conservatism  and  sense  of 
privilege  of  a  standing  order,  old  prejudices,  and  sometimes, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  the  bitter  spirit  in  which  rights  were  as- 
serted, all  operated  to  keep  Massachusetts  far  in  the  rear  of 
other  States.  President  Eliot  composed  for  one  of  the  in- 
scriptions for  the  World's  Fair  at  Chicago  in  1893,  this  sen- 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 63 

tence:  Toleration  in  religion  the  best  fruit  of  the  last  four 
centuries.  If  this  is  a  true  judgment,  Massachusetts  was 
slow,  very  slow,  in  appreciating  it.  At  length,  in  1833,  after 
coming  before  the  Legislature  at  several  sessions,  an  amend- 
ment forever  separating  Church  and  State  in  Massachusetts 
was  ratified  by  the  people.  And  the  long  struggle  in  which 
Baptists  had  been  the  most  prominent  was  closed  with  a 
triumph. 

2.  The  second  event  that  contributed  to  the  strength  of 
the  Baptists  was  the  new  interest  in  education. 

In  the  first  hundred  years  of  American  history  three  col- 
leges had  been  founded,  —  Harvard  in  1636,  William  and 
Mary  in  1693,  and  Yale  in  1701.  During  the  next  four 
decades  twelve  colleges  were  established.  The  first  four 
were  as  follows :  the  College  of  New  Jersey  (now  Princeton) 
in  1746;  King's  College  (now  Columbia  University)  in  1754, 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  in  1755,  and  Brown  Uni- 
versity in  1764. 

Harvard  and  Yale  were  controlled  by  the  Congrega- 
tionalists,  the  College  of  New  Jersey  by  the  Presbyterians, 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  King's  College,  and  William 
and  Mary  by  the  Episcopalians. 

The  reasons  that  led  the  Baptists  to  found  a  college  at 
Providence  have  been  variously  stated.  Some  of  them  will 
not  bear  examination.  For  example,  it  has  often  been  as- 
serted that  the  religious  tests  at  the  existing  colleges  put 
Baptist  students  under  peculiar  disabilities.  But  there  is 
nothing  in  the  charters  of  Harvard,  Yale,  King's  College,  or 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  to  bar  Baptist  students, 
while  at  Harvard  some  of  the  HoUis  scholarships  were  by 
preference  given  to  Baptists. 

But,  however  liberal  the  college  charters,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  there  was  considerable  social  discrimination 
against  Baptist  students.    They  did  not  belong  to  the  ruling 


164  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

caste,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  college  students  of 
the  day,  reflecting  the  disposition  of  the  Congregational 
churches  toward  the  Baptists,  made  the  lot  of  Baptist  stu- 
dents uncomfortable.  The  potent  reason,  however,  that  led 
the  Baptists  to  found  a  college  was  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
denomination  after  the  Great  Awakening  in  1740,  and  the 
appreciation  on  the  part  of  the  leading  men  of  the  great  need 
of  education  among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  churches. 

In  1740,  there  were  but  twenty-one  Baptist  churches  in 
all  New  England,  eleven  of  them  in  Rhode  Island.  In  1768 
the  Baptist  churches  in  New  England  numbered  sixty-nine, 
and  by  1790  they  had  increased  to  two  hundred  and  eighty- 
six,  having  a  membership  of  more  than  seventeen  thousand. 
There  is  no  such  record  of  rapid  growth  on  the  part  of  any 
other  denomination  in  the  entire  history  of  New  England. 
This  increase  in  members  and  influence  brought  the  Baptists 
to  self- consciousness,  and  at  once  they  saw  that  if  they  were 
to  hold  their  own  they  must  have  a  coUege  in  which,  whatever 
the  charters  of  existing  colleges  might  say,  the  entire  scho- 
lastic and  social  influence  of  the  college  should  not  be  per- 
petually drawing  Baptist  students  away  from  their  faith. 

Harvard  inscribes  on  one  of  her  gates  a  beautiful  sentence 
from  a  contemporary  letter: 

After  God  had  carried  us  safely  to  New  England,  and  wee  had 
builded  our  houses,  provided  necessaries  for  our  livelihood,  rear'd 
convenient  places  for  God's  worship,  and  settled  the  Civill  Govern- 
ment; One  of  the  next  things  we  looked  for  was  to  advance  Learning, 
and  perpetuate  it  to  Posterity;  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministry 
to  our  churches,  when  our  present  Ministers  shall  lie  in  the  Dust. 

The  devotion  and  the  vision  that  founded  Harvard  in 
1638,  founded  Brown,  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  years 
later,  in  1764.  The  college  did  not  originate  in  Rhode 
Island,  but  in  that  other  centre  of  Baptist  influence,  the 
Philadelphia  Association.     In   1756   the    Association    had 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 65 

established  an  academy  at  Hopewell,  New  Jersey,  under  the 
care  of  Rev.  Isaac  Eaton.  In  the  papers  of  David  Howell, 
the  first  professor  in  Brown  University,  there  is  this  memo- 
randum: 

Many  of  the  churches  being  supplied  with  able  pastors  from  Mr. 
Eaton's  Academy  and  thus  being  convinced  by  experience  of  the  great 
usefulness  of  human  literature  to  more  thoroughly  furnish  the  Man 
of  God  for  the  most  important  work  of  the  Gospel  ministry,  the  hands 
of  the  Philadelphia  Association  were  strengthened  and  their  hearts 
encouraged  to  extend  the  design  of  promoting  literature  in  the  Society 
by  erecting  on  some  suitable  part  of  the  continent  a  College  or  Uni- 
versity which  should  be  principally  under  the  direction  of  the  Baptists. 

It  is  evident  that  the  purposes  of  the  founding  of  Harvard 
and  Brown  were  similar,  but  the  charter  of  Brown  discloses 
a  conception  in  the  minds  of  the  founders  of  the  relation  of 
education  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  community  that  could 
only  have  been  inspired  by  a  large  outlook  upon  the  function 
of  education.  The  preamble  to  the  charter  gives  this  reason 
for  the  establishment  of  the  college: 

Institutions  for  liberal  Education  are  highly  beneficial  to  Society, 
by  forming  the  rising  generation  to  virtue,  knowledge  and  useful 
literature;  and  thus  preserving  in  the  community  a  succession  of  men 
duly  qualified  for  discharging  the  Offices  of  life  with  usefulness  and 
reputation. 

A  letter  written  by  Isaac  Backus  to  an  English  friend  the 
year  after  the  college  was  founded  shows  how  the  leaders 
looked  at  this  enterprise.    He  writes: 

One  grand  objection  made  use  of  against  Believer's  Baptism  has 
been  that  none  but  ignorant  and  illiterate  men  have  embraced  the 
Baptist  sentiments.  And  there  was  so  much  color  for  it  as  this,  namely, 
that  ten  years  ago  there  were  but  two  Baptist  ministers  in  all  New 
England  who  had  what  is  called  a  liberal  education;  and  they  were 
not  clear  in  the  doctrines  of  grace. 


1 66  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

In  another  letter  written  ten  years  later  he  alludes  to  the 
fact  that  Baptists  who  had  sent  their  sons  to  Harvard  and 
Yale,  "  have  been  disappointed,  as  the  clergy  have  found 
means  to  draw  them  over  to  their  party." 

1  need  not  recount  the  various  steps  by  which  the  New 
Jersey  Academy  became  Brown  University.  The  leaders 
were  James  Manning,  the  first  president  of  the  college,  a 
graduate  of  Princeton;  Morgan  Edwards,  a  graduate  of 
Bristol  College,  England;  and  Hezekiah  Smith,  a  graduate 
of  Princeton;  with  Isaac  Backus.  This  was  the  quartette 
that  carried  the  great  enterprise  through  to  completion. 
And  Baptists  have  seldom  had  in  one  generation  four  men 
of  superior  capacity  and  devotion. 

The  charter  of  Brown  University  has  sometimes  been 
characterized  by  those  who  have  not  studied  our  early  college 
charters  as  narrow,  because  it  puts  the  control  of  the  college 
in  the  hands  of  the  Baptists,  who  have  a  majority  both  on 
the  Board  of  FeUows  and  on  the  Board  of  Trustees. 

The  charter  divided  the  government  of  the  college  among 
the  representatives  of  the  Baptists,  the  Friends,  the  Congre- 
gationalists,  and  the  Episcopalians.  These  denominations 
must  be  represented  in  the  government  of  the  college.  The 
colleges  established  before  Brown  had  self -perpetuating 
governing  boards,  which  almost  without  exception,  and 
naturally  enough,  filled  vacancies  with  their  coreligionists. 
Thus  it  came  about  that  without  charter  provision,  there 
was  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  coloring  the  college  in- 
struction and  making  the  college  influence  a  powerful  direct 
factor  in  the  life  of  the  denomination  which  founded  the 
college.  At  Harvard  and  Yale  and  Princeton  this  feature 
of  the  college  work  was  so  emphasized  that  ultimately  each 
college  became  identified  with  a  peculiar  type  of  theology.  At 
Brown,  in  addition  to  obligatory  representation  of  four  denom- 
inations on  the  governing  board,  it  was  expressly  enjoined  by 


THE  BAPTISTS  167 

the  charter  that  "  the  sectarian  differences  of  opinion  shall 
not  make  any  part  of  the  public  and  classical  instruction." 

It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  the  evolution  of  institutions 
that  colleges  which  remain  firmly  attached  to  certain  de- 
nominations through  prescription  and  the  self-perpetuating 
power  of  their  governing  boards  should  be  characterized  as 
non-sectarian,  while  a  college  that  makes  specific  provision 
for  the  inclusion  on  its  governing  board  of  four  religious 
bodies  should  sometimes  have  been  characterized  as  nar- 
rowly denominational. 

It  was  a  day  of  small  things,  of  small  things  at  Cambridge 
and  New  Haven  as  well  as  at  Providence.  But  the  seed 
planted  in  Providence  was  good,  and  Brown  University  has 
been  one  of  the  principal  factors,  not  only  by  what  it  has 
accomplished  itself,  but  what  it  has  inspired  other  commu- 
nities to  attempt  in  raising  the  educational  standards  of 
Baptist  ministers  and  laity. 

In  181 5,  the  Maine  Literary  and  Theological  Institution, 
now  Colby  College,  was  estabhshed  at  Waterville,  Maine. 
In  1825,  the  Newton  Theological  Institution  was  founded 
at  Newton  Centre.  Brown,  Colby,  and  Newton  have  been 
the  principal  agencies  of  New  England  Baptists  for  higher 
education.  Brown  has  sent  out  six  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  eleven  men;  Colby,  about  one  thousand  five  hundred; 
and  the  Newton  Seminary,  one  thousand  six  hundred  and 
seventy-five. 

Professor  Brastow  of  Yale  in  his  work.  The  Modern 
Pulpit,  probably  did  not  overstate  the  case  when  he  gave 
these  institutions  the  principal  credit  for  raising  the  educa- 
tional equipment  of  the  American  Baptist  ministry.  In 
addition  to  the  two  colleges  and  the  seminary  the  Baptists 
have  well  equipped  academies  in  all  the  New  England  States 
except  Rhode  Island,  and  in  Maine  four  academies  act  as 
the  principal  feeders  of  Colby  College. 


1 68  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  founding  of  Brown  University  at  Providence  was  an 
indication  of  the  interest  of  New  England  Baptists  in  edu- 
cation, and  the  cause  of  still  deeper  interest.  Taking  the 
country  as  a  whole,  the  Baptists  were  indifferent  to  educa- 
tion, and  in  most  cases  hostile  to  specific  training  for  the 
ministry,  even  when  they  appreciated  literary  culture.  The 
success  of  the  New  Light  preachers  in  winning  large  numbers 
of  converts  and  in  organizing  churches  produced  the  con- 
viction that  the  Gospel  needed  no  aids  from  human  learning, 
and  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  educated  minister  would  tend 
to  rely  on  his  own  resources  rather  than  upon  the  aid  of  the 
Divine  Spirit.    This  was  especially  true  in  the  South. 

When  New  England  Baptists  established  the  Seminary 
at  Newton,  the  first  to  be  organized  by  American  Baptists 
exclusively  for  theological  training,  it  confronted  strong  oppo- 
sition. It  only  succeeded  in  commending  itself  by  its  product 
and  when  it  was  seen  that  Newton  graduates  were  quite  as 
successful  in  winning  converts  as  the  untrained  ministers, 
and  that  they  reached  classes  of  the  community  inaccessible 
to  the  uneducated  preachers,  the  opposition  was  lessened. 
One  result  of  ministerial  training  was  that  the  Baptists, 
whose  growth  had  been  largely  confined  to  the  rural  sections, 
began  to  make  substantial  gains  in  the  cities.  This  demon- 
stration and  the  impulse  that  came  from  it  made  the  New 
England  Baptists  the  educational  leaders  of  the  entire  de- 
nomination. The  educational  pioneers  of  the  West  and 
South,  for  the  most  part,  were  trained  in  New  England. 
During  the  last  twenty-five  years  there  has  been  something 
like  an  educational  revival  throughout  the  whole  denomi- 
nation and  large  sums  have  been  given  to  our  institutions. 
The  clearest-sighted  of  our  leaders  see  that  in  the  perpetua- 
tion and  enlargement  of  this  enthusiasm  lies,  from  a  human 
point  of  view,  the  fairest  prospect  of  continued  denomina- 
tional efficiency  and  progress. 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 69 

An  incidental  but  important  manifestation  of  the  opening 
of  men's  eyes  to  larger  horizons  was  the  founding  of  The 
Watchman,  a  weekly  religious  newspaper,  in  Boston  in  18 19. 
The  relation  of  its  press  to  a  religious  community  is  like  that 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  to  the  body.  It  brings  part 
into  relation  with  part,  carr3dng  nutrition  and  stimulus  to 
the  whole  organism.  Almost  from  the  first.  The  Watchman 
became  a  recognized  power.  During  the  middle  years  of 
the  last  century,  before  newspapers  and  magazines  were 
multiplied,  The  Watchman  held  a  place  in  the  life  of  the 
average  Baptist  household  only  second  to  the  Bible. 

3.  A  third  factor  of  great  importance  in  the  life  of  the 
denomination  was  the  development  of  the  missionary  im- 
pulse in  work  both  at  home  and  abroad.  In  this  history 
the  one  name  of  Adoniram  Judson  stands  forth  preeminent. 
Judson  graduated  from  Brown  University  in  the  Class  of 
1807,  and  from  Andover  Theological  Seminary  in  18 10. 

In  1 81 2,  Judson,  with  three  other  young  missionaries, 
was  sent  to  the  Far  East  by  the  American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Missions,  which  had  been  recently 
organized.  On  the  long  voyage  he  busied  himself  in  a  study 
of  the  Scriptures  relating  to  baptism,  for  he  knew  that  he 
should  meet  in  India  the  EngHsh  Baptists.  As  a  result  of 
his  study  he  became  convinced  that  the  Baptists  were  right 
in  their  view  of  the  ordinance,  and  he  was  baptized  in  Cal- 
cutta, September  6,  18 12.  Soon  after  his  companion, 
Luther  Rice,  followed  his  example.  When  Judson' s  letters 
to  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Baldwin  of  Boston  and  to  Rev.  Dr. 
Lucius  BoUes  of  Salem,  announcing  his  change  of  view  and 
appealing  to  the  American  Baptists  for  help,  were  published. 
Baptists  recognized  the  appeal  as  a  divine  call,  and  May  18, 
1814,  eleven  States  and  the  District  of  Columbia  sent  dele- 
gates to  a  meeting  in  Philadelphia.  The  result  was  the  or- 
ganization of  "  The  General  Missionary  Convention  of  the 


lyo  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Baptist  Denomination  in  the  United  States  of  America  for 
Foreign  Missions."  This  is  the  first  considerable  work  in 
which  American  Baptists  were  united. 

In  a  certain  sense  the  rapid  increase  of  Baptist  churches 
after  the  Great  Awakening  was  the  first  factor  in  creating 
a  denominational  consciousness  and  from  that  had  come 
Brown  University,  but  it  was  the  missionary  enterprise  in- 
augurated in  these  circumstances,  and  led  by  a  man  like 
Judson,  of  rare  scholarship,  of  apostolic  devotion,  and  of  a 
fibre  to  sustain  sufferings  that  rank  with  those  of  the  early 
martyrs,  which  transformed  a  group  of  churches  that  were 
as  a  lump  of  clay,  incapable  of  transmitting  a  vibration  from 
particle  to  particle,  into  a  block  of  marble  responsive  through 
its  entire  mass  to  every  impulse. 

The  record  of  what  was  at  first  accomplished  appears 
meagre  in  the  light  of  our  larger  undertakings  of  recent  years. 
It  is  reported  that  the  contributions  of  the  first  year  were 
one  thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  dollars,  and  for 
the  first  ten  years  only  seventy-three  thousand  dollars.  The 
question  soon  arose  whether  work  among  the  American 
Indians  was  not  as  truly  foreign  as  work  in  India  and  Bur- 
mah.  There  was  a  general  conviction  that  it  was,  and  the 
impulse  from  Judson's  appeal  led  to  the  establishment  of 
missions  among  the  Indian  tribes.  In  1826,  when  we  had 
nine  missionaries  in  Burmah,  we  had  sixteen  among  the 
American  Indians. 

Undoubtedly  many  mistakes  were  made.  For  one  thing, 
too  much  was  attempted.  Judson  and  Rice  profoundly  be- 
lieved in  an  educated  ministry.  It  seemed  to  be  a  legitimate 
thing  for  the  Missionary  Society  to  found  a  university. 
This  was  done  and  Columbian  University  was  established 
at  Washington,  D.  C.  But  when  funds  that  were  needed  in 
Burmah  were  used  in  Washington,  it  became  evident  that 
the  Society  must  bend  its  energies  to  one  task.    Fortunately, 


THE  BAPTISTS  I /I 

however,  it  was  out  of  their  educational  interest  that  there 
came  the  theological  schools  in  Hamilton,  N.  Y.,  in  1819, 
and  in  Newton  in  1825.  The  Society,  however,  continued 
the  work  among  the  Indians. 

In  1826,  there  was  so  much  discouragement  about  the 
financial  outlook  of  the  Society  that  the  Baptists  of  Massa- 
chusetts offered  to  become  responsible  for  its  care  and 
maintenance.  This  offer  was  accepted  and  the  headquarters 
of  all  the  foreign  missionary  work  of  the  Northern  Baptists 
has  been  in  Boston  since  that  time.  Up  to  1845  the  Society 
represented  the  denomination  in  the  entire  country,  but  in 
that  year  "  The  Southern  Baptist  Convention  "  was  or- 
ganized with  headquarters  at  Richmond,  Va.  The  division 
was  wholly  on  the  issue  of  slavery. 

The  responsibility  assumed  by  the  Baptists  of  Massachu- 
setts with  regard  to  this  work  has  proved  larger,  perhaps, 
than  our  fathers  imagined.  But  the  Baptists  of  New  Eng- 
land have  rallied  splendidly  to  their  great  task,  and  they  have 
amply  fulfilled  that  venturous  pledge. 

Just  now  there  is  a  persistent  attempt  to  remove  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Society  either  to  New  York,  the  financial 
centre  of  the  country,  or  to  Chicago,  which  is  nearer  the 
geographical  centre.  New  England  will  not  look  unmoved 
on  this  transfer,  but  she  may  safely  challenge  either  New 
York  or  Chicago,  in  any  years  to  come,  to  do  better  pro- 
portionately than  Boston  has  done. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  the  interest  in  foreign 
missions  among  Baptists  that  dates  from  the  appeal  of 
Adoniram  Judson  and  Luther  Rice  has  done  for  the  Baptist 
churches  of  the  United  States.  Practically,  it  made  them 
a  denomination.  It  enlisted  them  in  an  enterprise  that  in- 
terpreted to  them  anew  the  Christian  Gospel :  it  broadened 
the  range  of  their  sympathies  and  interests  to  the  compass 
of  the  globe,  and  it  created  a  new  sense  of  common  brother- 


172  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

hood.  The  centennial  year  of  our  foreign  missionary  work 
was  observed  last  summer,  and  it  was  noticeable  how  in 
both  North  and  South  there  was  a  common  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  Judson's  appeal,  long  preceding  any  division 
between  North  and  South,  had  created  a  common  history 
and  a  common  consciousness  in  which  reside  the  fairest 
hopes  for  a  perfect  reunion  of  these  two  sections  of  our 
present  denominational  life. 

Previous  to  1832  there  had  been  sporadic  attempts  to 
evangelize  the  expanding  West,  but  the  movement  to  enlist 
the  resources  of  the  entire  Baptist  membership  of  the  States 
of  the  Atlantic  Seaboard  came  from  New  England.  Dr. 
Jonathan  Going  of  Worcester,  and  Dr.  Lucius  Bolles  of 
Salem  made  a  tour  of  the  West  and  reported  that  the  time 
was  ripe  "  to  arouse  the  Baptist  community  throughout  the 
United  States  to  systematic  and  vigorous  efforts  in  the  cause 
of  domestic  missions  and  that  a  general  home  mission  society 
should  be  formed."  The  result  was  the  formation  of  the 
American  Baptist  Home  Mission  Society  in  1832,  with 
headquarters  in  New  York  City,  where  they  have  since  re- 
mained. Last  year  the  total  income  of  the  Foreign  Mission 
Society  was  $1,114,420,  and  of  the  Home  Society,  $673,166. 

A  few  words  are  proper  concerning  the  type  of  theology 
that  has  prevailed  in  the  Baptist  churches  of  this  country. 
In  England  there  have  been  from  the  first  both  Calvinistic 
and  Arminian  Baptists.  The  latter,  known  as  General  Bap- 
tists, made  their  influence  felt  chiefly  in  Virginia,  but  they 
have  never  been  a  numerous  body.  The  Baptists  of  New 
England  were  for  the  most  part  Calvinists,  and  when  they 
became  Arminian  they  became  so  because  they  were  mod- 
erate Calvinists,  and  moderate  Calvinism  shades  off  in- 
evitably into  Arminianism.  Still,  we  have  had  churches  in 
the  North,  like  the  First  Church,  Providence,  that  have 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 73 

always  been  Arminian.  The  Southern  Baptist  churches, 
except  the  small  number  that  trace  from  the  English  General 
Baptists,  have  been  Calvinistic,  with  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
fession, which  is  the  Westminster  Confession  slightly  revised 
to  bring  it  into  conformity  with  the  Baptist  doctrine  of  the 
church,  as  their  symbol. 

It  cannot  be  fairly  said  that  Baptists,  as  a  whole,  are  either 
Calvinists  or  Arminians.  Both  types  have  been  cultivated 
and  recognized.  The  principal  reason  for  the  predominant 
Calvinism  of  the  South  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  South  was  largely  evangelized  from  the  Philadelphia 
Association.  And  an  incidental  occasion  for  the  Arminianism 
of  some  of  the  New  England  Baptist  churches  was  their 
reaction  from  the  Calvinism  of  the  New  England  Congre- 
gational churches,  at  whose  hands  the  early  Baptists  suf- 
fered so  many  injustices. 

In  the  South  and  West,  and  to  a  small  extent  in  the  North, 
the  extreme  Calvinistic  churches  carried  out  their  views  of 
the  divine  sovereignty  to  the  extent  of  opposing  missions 
and  evangelization  of  all  kinds;  indeed,  they  were  hostile 
to  any  form  of  Christian  activity.  These  bodies  have  become 
practically  negligible. 

In  the  North  an  interesting  revolt  from  the  Calvinism  of 
the  New  Hampshire  churches  was  led  by  Benjamin  Randall. 
In  September,  1770,  Randall,  then  a  godless  youth,  heard 
Whitefield  preach  at  Portsmouth.  Two  days  after  this 
Whitefield  died  at  Newburyport.  Randall  was  greatly  im- 
pressed by  Whitefield's  death,  and  became  an  active  Chris- 
tian. Five  years  later  he  withdrew  from  the  Congregational 
Church  of  which  he  was  a  member,  on  account  of  infant 
baptism,  and  united  with  the  Baptist  Church  of  Berwick, 
Maine.  Randall  appears  to  have  had  remarkable  power  and 
success  as  an  evangelist.    His  preaching  was  of  the  type  of 


174  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Wesleyan  Arminianism.  By  reason  of  this  he  was  disfellow- 
shipped  by  a  local  council  of  Calvinistic  Baptist  churches, 
and  thereupon  he  organized  at  New  Durham,  N.  H.,  in 
1780,  a  church  in  sympathy  with  his  views.  This  is  the 
mother-church  of  the  so-called  Free  Will  Baptists.  The  per- 
sistence of  the  regular  Baptists  in  calling  these  dissidents 
"  Free  Willers  "  led  them  to  adopt  the  name,  but  it  is  not 
of  their  original  choice.  By  1810  the  connection  had  130 
churches,  no  ministers,  and  6,000  members. 

In  191 1,  the  date  of  their  union  with  the  Regular  Baptists, 
the  Free  Baptists  had  two  well  equipped  colleges,  Hillsdale 
College,  Michigan,  founded  in  1855,  and  Bates  College  in 
Lewiston,  Maine,  founded  in  1863,  with  a  number  of  schools 
of  the  lower  grade,  834  churches,  914  ministers,  and  33,600 
church  members. 

The  happy  union  of  the  Free  Will  and  the  regular  Bap- 
tists on  October  5,  191 1,  did  much  to  solve  the  vexed  com- 
munion question  for  the  Northern  Baptist  churches.  The 
Free  Baptists  for  the  most  part  practiced  open  communion, 
and  the  regular  Baptists  restricted  communion;  in  other 
words,  they  held  that  the  communion  was  only  rightfully 
administered  in  Baptist  churches  to  believers  who  had  been 
immersed.  At  one  time  this  question  threatened  to  become 
an  issue  that  might  readily  lead  to  division.  The  union  of 
which  I  have  just  spoken  has  resulted  in  putting  this  whole 
matter  strictly  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  local  church. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  while  there  have  been  dif- 
ferences and  divisions  among  Baptists  like  those  just  cited, 
their  doctrinal  position  throughout  their  history  in  the 
United  States  has  been  strongly  evangelical.  There  has 
been  no  appreciable  movement  toward  Unitarianism,  as 
there  has  been  among  the  Arminian  Baptists  in  England. 
Considering  the  looseness  of  their  ecclesiastical  organization, 


THE  BAPTISTS  1 75 

and  the  comparatively  slight  esteem  in  which  they  hold 
creeds,  this  substantial  unity  as  to  the  teachings  of  the 
Gospel  has  been  marvellous. 

The  development  of  organization  among  Baptists  affords 
an  unwritten  chapter  in  recent  history.  The  independency 
of  the  local  church  has  always  been  a  cardinal  tenet.  In 
early  days  it  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  induce  Baptist 
churches  to  combine  in  an  association  or  convention.  The 
Warren  Association  of  churches  was  formed  with  the  utmost 
difficulty.  When  in  1767  the  representatives  of  the  church 
met  under  the  leadership  of  James  Manning  and  Hezekiah 
Smith  to  organize  an  association,  only  four  saw  their  way 
clear  to  unite  in  the  enterprise.  These  were  the  Warren 
of  Rhode  Island;  the  Haverhill,  BeUingham,  and  Second 
Middleborough  of  Massachusetts.  Even  Isaac  Backus,  who 
afterwards  came  to  recognize  the  great  value  of  the  coopera- 
tive work,  held  back.  His  church  wrote  that  they  "  waited 
until  they  could  be  satisfied  that  the  Association  did  not 
assume  any  jurisdiction  over  the  churches." 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  most  Baptist  churches  in 
the  United  States  are  members  of  a  local  Association,  the 
churches  are  jealous  of  their  independency,  and  the  Associ- 
ation's powers  are  simply  advisory.  State  Conventions, 
which  are  simply  larger  associations  of  churches  for  mission- 
ary purposes  within  the  States,  are  organized  in  every  State. 
In  the  New  England  States  the  State  Conventions  admin- 
ister considerable  funds  for  helping  the  weaker  churches, 
for  evangelization,  and  of  late  years  for  missions  among  our 
foreign  population.  Every  attempt  to  constitute  Conven- 
tions on  a  system  of  representation  from  the  Associations 
has  been  firmly  resisted.  The  unit  of  representation,  both 
in  the  Association  and  in  the  State  Convention,  has  always 
been  the  local  church. 


176  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  total  number  of  Northern  Baptists  at  the  present 
time  is  1,291,668.  The  Southern  Baptists  number  2,552,633, 
and  the  colored  Baptists,  1,984,952.  The  total  number  of 
Baptists  in  the  United  States  of  all  names  is  6,129,467,  mak- 
ing it  the  second  largest  Protestant  denomination  in  the 
United  States.  In  New  England  there  are  1,333  Baptist 
churches,  with  165,383  members. 


IV 
THE  QUAKERS 

RUFUS  M.  JONES 


THE   QUAKERS 

THE  Quakers  came  into  existence  as  a  distinct  religious 
Society  during  the  period  of  the  EngUsh  Commonwealth, 
though  the  work  of  preparation  for  their  movement  had  been 
under  way  since  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation.^  The 
leader  of  the  movement  and  the  founder  of  the  Society  was 
George  Fox,  who  was  born  in  Leicestershire,  of  humble  but 
rugged.  God-fearing  parents  in  1624,  and  who  began  his 
mission  as  an  itinerant  lay  preacher  in  1648.  From  the  year 
1652,  when  Fox  fell  in  with  bands  of  religious  "  Seekers  " 
in  the  northern  counties,  the  movement  grew  rapidly,  at- 
tracted wide  public  notice,  and  because  of  its  radical,  un- 
compromising views  and  practices  brought  much  persecution 
upon  its  exponents. 

Fox  and  his  followers  called  themselves  at  first  "  the 
children  of  the  Light,"  because  they  professed  to  be  led, 
guided  and  inspired  by  a  divine  and  heavenly  Light,  reveal- 
ing the  Truth  to  their  souls,  and  they  called  their  preachers 
"  the  publishers  of  Truth."  Later,  by  a  happy  insight,  they 
adopted  the  name  "  Friends,"  and,  as  they  did  not  approve 
of  applying  the  word  Church  to  any  denomination  or  branch 
of  Christendom,  since  it  belonged  to  the  whole  body  uni- 
versal, they  took  the  more  modest  word,  and  called  them- 
selves "  the  Society  of  Friends."  By  the  pubhc,  however, 
almost  from  the  first,  they  were  nicknamed  "  Quakers,"  prob- 
ably because  in  their  meetings  they  trembled  with  a  physical 
resonance,  stirred  by  their  deep  and  intense  emotions.^ 

^  I  have  traced  the  steps  of  this  preparation  in  my  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion, 
1908,  and  Spiritual  Reformers  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries,  1914- 

^  George  Fox  assigned  the  origin  of  the  name,  "  Quaker,"  to  an  incident  in  a 
court  of  justice  (Journal,  I,  p.  58)  but  the  psychological  ground  for  the  name  is 
recognized  by  many  early  Friends. 


l8o  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  movement  was,  from  its  earliest  beginning,  outreach- 
ing  and  missionary  in  spirit.  Its  exponents  were  possessed 
with  a  faith  that  they  had  rediscovered  "  primitive  Chris- 
tianity "  and  they  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that  they  had 
found  a  fresh  and  living  way  which  would  spread  and  become 
a  world- Christianity.  In  this  faith  they  undertook  "  the 
hazards  and  hardships  "  of  propagating  it,  not  only  at  home 
but  "  overseas  "  as  well. 

The  earliest  Quaker  messengers  to  reach  the  American 
continent  were  two  women,  Ann  Austin  and  Mary  Fisher, 
who  landed  in  Boston  in  July,  1656,  though  "  the  seed  of 
Truth,"  as  the  Quakers  called  their  message,  was  planted 
at  a  period  almost  as  early  on  Long  Island  and  on  the  shores 
of  Maryland.  The  Massachusetts  officials  took  excessive 
care  that  the  inhabitants  of  their  colony  should  not  be 
harmed  or  corrupted  by  these  emissaries,  and  they  were 
soon  sent  back  to  Barbadoes,  from  which  island  they  had 
come.  The  messengers  who  finally  succeeded  in  planting 
the  "  seed  "  in  New  England  were  eleven  Friends  who  came 
over  in  the  ship  "  Woodhouse  "  in  1657.  Their  first  suc- 
cessful groups  were  formed  in  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  and 
in  Sandwich  and  Salem,  Massachusetts,  and  gradually  in 
the  face  of  great  opposition  the  movement  spread  through 
aU  the  New  England  colonial  settlements  except  those  in 
Connecticut. 

The  officials  of  Massachusetts  determined  to  protect  their 
colony  from  the  "  invasion  "  and  they  adopted  the  most 
stringent  methods  of  dealing  with  what  seemed  to  them  a 
religious  peril.  Four  Quakers  were  executed,  excessive  fines 
were  imposed,  and  a  system  of  "  f rightfulness  "  was  put 
into  operation  in  the  shape  of  unmerciful  whippings.  It 
was  aU  in  vain.  The  movement  grew  and  increased,  as 
though  it  fed  on  persecution,  and  the  authorities  were  finally 
led  to  grant  their  unwelcome  visitors  a  more  peaceful  re- 


THE  QUAKERS  l8l 

ception.  By  the  year  1700,  the  Quakers  had  become  very 
numerous  in  New  England  and  they  continued  to  be  a  grow- 
ing body  until  after  the  period  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 
During  the  nineteenth  century  they  slowly  declined,  and 
they  now  have  a  membership  of  about  four  thousand  in  the 
New  England  States.  There  are  in  all  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  thousand  Quakers  in  America  and  about 
twenty-three  thousand  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

The  following  chapter  is  an  attempt  to  give  the  reader  an 
impression  of  the  Quaker  type  of  Christianity  not  so  much 
in  its  external  form  and  appearance  as  from  the  inside  and 
as  a  living,  operating,  spiritual  and  social  force. 

There  are  two  types  of  religious  leaders,  both  of  whom 
have  played  great  roles  in  history,  though  I  do  not  mean  to 
imply  that  they  can  be  divided  off  from  one  another  by  any 
absolute  gap,  like  that  which  separates  the  sheep  from  the 
goats.  There  are,  in  the  first  group,  leaders  who  are  pledged 
and  dedicated  to  remote  ideals,  that  is  to  say,  to  ideals  which 
seem  for  the  moment  unattainable  and  Utopian,  and  who 
nevertheless  utterly  refuse  to  scale  their  ideal  down  or  to 
compromise  for  the  sake  of  quick  but  partial  gains.  By  the 
inspiration  and  kindling  of  earlier  prophets,  or  by  what 
Emerson  calls  "  stricter  obedience  to  celestial  currents," 
the  leader  of  this  first  type  sees  through  the  complex  and 
tangle  of  events  and  situations  and  seizes  a  truth  which  all 
men  in  some  happier  and  more  golden  age  will  recognize  as 
true.  When  he  has  once  seen  it,  this  vision  transforms  all 
his  ideas  and  strivings  and  aims.  It  spoils  forever  for  him 
all  lower  attainments,  all  half  truths,  all  gains  which  must 
be  won  through  the  barter  or  surrender  of  a  possible  better. 
He  will  be  obedient  to  that  vision  regardless  of  all  cost.  He 
will  bear  witness  to  the  full  hght  which  he  has  seen,  even 
though  he  can  compel  nobody  else  in  the  heedless  world  of 


1 82  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

his  generation  to  see  it.  He  may  only  cry  in  the  wilderness, 
but  at  all  events  he  will  cry,  and  he  will  proclaim  that  highest 
thing  his  heart  knows. 

There  are,  in  the  second  group,  the  great  practical  leaders 
whose  eyes  are  always  focussed  on  results.  They  under- 
stand their  age  and  they  know  for  what  it  is  ripe  and  ready. 
They  anticipate  what  the  rest  about  them  are  incipiently 
thinking  and  they  voice  and  interpret  the  movings  and  striv- 
ings of  the  rank  and  file.  They  know  by  a  kind  of  instinct 
how  far  their  contemporaries  can  be  carried  and  they  will 
not  overhurry,  they  will  not  outrun  the  speed  of  those 
whom  they  propose  to  bring  along  and  they  will  make  grace- 
ful bends  and  curves  and  wide  detours  round  the  obstacles 
that  He  between  them  and  the  goal.  If  they  cannot  get  all 
they  want,  they  will  at  least  get  something. 

Both  of  these  methods  have  proved  effective  in  history, 
and  they  are  both  types  of  leadership  which  have  won  the 
"  well-done  "  of  after  ages,  and,  1  believe,  the  "  well-done  " 
of  the  divine  Spectator  of  events.  We  must  not  underrate 
leaders  who  do  not  immediately  march  straight  across 
country  to  Canaan  the  moment  they  glimpse  it  from  some 
Pisgah,  but  who  with  patient  struggle  and  with  much  give 
and  take  on  the  road,  succeed  in  bringing  the  multitude  a 
Httle  nearer  to  a  promised  land  and  in  firing  them  all  with 
a  hope  of  Canaan  some  day.  Hosea  Biglow  has  some  wise 
words  on  this  point : 

Theory  thinks  Fact  a  pretty  thing, 
An'  wants  the  banns  read  right  ensuin' ; 
But  Fact  wont  nowise  wear  the  ring 
'Thout  years  o'  settin'  up  an  wooin'. 

The  Quakers,  however,  who  came  to  New  England  in  the 
mid-seventeenth  century  belonged  to  my  first  type.  They 
had  a  kind  of  click  of  certainty  in  their  souls,  which  sent  them 


THE  QUAKERS  1 83 

forward  without  any  reserves  or  doubts,  without  any  ifs  or 
buts,  without  halting  reflections  or  sub-conscious  inhibitions. 
Their  leadings  were  accepted  once  for  all  as  divine  calls  and 
intimations  and,  that  point  being  settled,  they  could  not  do 
otherwise  than  follow  where  their  inner  star  took  them.  This 
infallibility  of  conviction  brings  with  it  peculiar  difficulties 
and  handicaps  and  it  produces  a  type  of  character  that  seems 
to  others  narrow  and  stubborn,  but  this  note  of  the  "fiery 
positive  "  adds  immensely  to  the  driving  force  of  a  move- 
ment, and  in  the  case  of  the  Quakers  it  brought  a  fresh  ele- 
ment of  intensity  and  of  daring  venture  into  the  religious 
life  of  New  England. 

About  the  last  thing  any  self-respecting  Englishman  of 
the  seventeenth  century  would  have  dreamed  of  would  have 
been  such  a  radical  reconstruction  of  the  Christian  Church 
as  to  put  women  on  precisely  the  same  level  as  men,  and  to 
wipe  out  all  sex-distinction  in  matters  of  religion.  Just  this 
innovation  the  Quakers  actually  made. 

The  serious  attempt  to  constitute  the  church  of  both  men 
and  women  and  to  give  to  women  all  the  spiritual  privileges, 
rights,  duties,  and  functions  which  belonged  to  men  had 
once  before  been  tried  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  The 
Montanists  of  the  second  and  third  century,  possessed  with 
enthusiasm  for  the  restoration  of  prophecy,  and  for  the  for- 
mation of  a  church  guided  by  prophets  rather  than  one 
governed  by  bishops,  threw  the  door  wide  open  for  women; 
proposed  a  type  of  church  in  which  both  sexes  shared  alike 
and,  not  only  in  theory  but  in  practice  as  well,  raised  women 
to  the  full  spiritual  stature  of  men.  While  this  Sibylline 
movement  was  at  its  height  women  prophesied,  taught, 
baptized,  consecrated  the  Eucharist,  and  had  all  the  priv- 
ileges of  martyrdom  and  sainthood,  as  that  extraordinary 
document.  The  Passion  of  Saint  Perpetua,  vividly  shows. 
But  this  movement  was  ruthlessly  stamped  out,  and  the 


184  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

church  which  was  to  do  the  work  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  so 
organized  that  not  only  was  no  woman  eligible  to  office  or 
position  in  the  hierarchy,  but  no  man  even,  who  was  married, 
could  share  in  it. 

The  Reformation  swept  away  the  celibate  priesthood  and 
wiped  out  the  convent  within  the  Protestant  domain,  but 
it  left  the  church  severely  masculine  in  all  its  higher  activi- 
ties and  functions.  Even  if  they  had  desired  to  make  the 
innovation  and  constitute  the  reformed  churches  of  both 
men  and  women,  the  reformers  with  their  conception  of  the 
infallibility  of  Scripture  would  have  been  confronted  with  the 
impasse  of  St.  Paul's  words :  "Let  the  women  keep  silence  in 
the  churches,  for  it  is  not  permitted  them  to  speak.  If  they 
would  learn  anything  let  them  ask  their  husbands  at  home." 

The  Quakers  did  not  discuss  the  woman  problem;  they 
made  no  announcement  of  principles  or  of  programme,  but 
they  inaugurated  a  movement  in  which  from  the  very  first 
the  agelong  discrimination  against  women  was  entirely 
absent.  Here  is  an  entry  in  Fox's  Journal  for  the  year  1667 : 
"  I  advised  the  setting  up  of  a  girls'  school  at  Shacklewell, 
for  instructing  them  in  whatsoever  things  are  civil  and  use- 
ful in  creation."  And  as  the  Quaker  movement  made 
progress  and  developed,  there  came  into  existence  a  church 
organization  in  which  personality,  gifts,  and  specific  quali- 
fications were  the  only  tests  of  fitness  for  service  —  the 
divine  right,  not  of  kings  and  not  of  bishops,  but  of  common 
men  and  women  was  here  recognized  and  quietly  practiced. 
And  once  again  women  had  all  the  privileges  of  martyrdom, 
as  the  story  of  Mary  Dyer  grimly  illustrates. 

The  most  striking  trait  of  the  Quakerism  which  came  as 
an  unwelcome  invasion  of  New  England  was  its  emphasis 
on  experience  —  what  William  James  called  "  inwardness." 
Boston  had  already,  in  1636  and  1637,  ^^^  i^s  peace  of  mind 
disturbed  by  an  exhibition  of  this  type  of  religion  in  the 


THE  QUAKERS  '         1 85 

persons  of  Anne  Hutchinson  and  her  friends,  who  claimed 
to  have  got  beyond  "  the  covenant  of  works  "  and  to  have 
come,  with  comfort  and  joy,  into  "  the  covenant  of  grace." 
These  early  enthusiasts  insisted  that  other  Christians  were 
bound  in  the  strait-jacket  of  legalism,  while  they  had 
found  their  freedom  and  had  entered  into  an  inmiediate 
contact  with  the  wells  of  truth  and  were  aware  of  the  direct 
bubblings  of  life  in  their  own  souls.  This  mystical  element 
of  religion,  which  was  well-nigh  stamped  out  in  the  vigorous 
suppression  of  the  Hutchinsonians,  the  Quakers  revived  and 
re-incarnated  wherever  they  planted  their  meetings.  Quaker 
mysticism  was,  however,  quite  unlike  that  expounded  in  the 
mystical  classics,  such  as  the  writings  of  Dionysius,  of  Eck- 
hart  and  Tauler  and  the  two  golden  books:  "  German 
Theology  "  and  "  The  Imitation  of  Christ."  The  Quakers 
were  very  weak  in  metaphysics.  They  had  no  philosophical 
passion  for  absolute  unity.  They  were  not  perplexed  by  the 
problem  of  multiplicity.  They  took  the  world  quite  naively 
as  their  senses  found  it,  and,  in  a  general  way,  their  God  was 
the  God  of  religion  rather  than  the  God  of  metaphysics  or 
theology.  They  discovered  something  in  their  own  soul,  in 
their  own  inner  consciousness,  which  seemed  not  of  them- 
selves, nor  of  man.  When  they  returned  home,  as  they  put 
it,  to  the  shekinah  in  their  own  deeps,  they  felt  with  awe 
that  they  were  covered  by  a  Hving  presence  and  brought  into 
first  hand,  experimental,  relation  with  the  Root  and  Ground 
of  all  true  Life.  One  of  these  men,  who  was  martyred  on 
Boston  Common  for  his  faith,  in  much  simplicity  declared 
that  he  found  himself  filled  immediately  with  Life  and  Power 
and  heavenly  Love  from  that  presence  which  did  "  mightily 
overshadow  me,"  and  another  one  of  them,  who,  likewise, 
was  faithful  unto  death,  has  left  his  personal  testimony: 
"  I  was  filled  with  the  Love  and  Presence  of  the  Hving  God 
which  did  ravish  my  heart  when  I  felt  it;  for  it  did  increase 


1 86  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  abound  in  me  like  a  living  stream."  They  knew  very 
little  psychology,  and  they  furnish  us  no  profound  analyses 
of  their  experiences,  as  St.  Augustine  has  done  of  his,  but 
there  is  directness  and  sincerity  and  honesty  and  restraint 
in  their  accounts  which  make  one  sure  that  something 
dynamic  and  transforming  came  into  their  lives,  something 
that  raised  them  out  of  the  ordinary  level,  something  which 
made  the  reality  of  God  absolutely  sun-clear  to  them.  They 
called  their  experience  "  the  birth  of  the  immortal  Seed," 
or  "  the  birth  of  God,"  or  "  the  birth  of  Christ "  in  their 
souls.  And  they  swung  out  into  the  full  faith  that  the  God 
who  as  Spirit  brooded  like  a  mother-dove  over  the  vast  waste 
of  chaos,  and  brought  a  world  to  birth,  had  now  again  in  love 
brooded  over  their  own  souls  and  brought  His  spiritual  Life 
to  birth  in  themselves.  God,  then,  was  no  longer  worlds  of 
space  away,  sundered  by  a  bridgeless  chasm  from  man.  He 
was  as  near  as  the  dew  to  the  grass  or  the  sunlight  to  the 
flower,  or  as  the  truth  is  to  the  mind  that  knows  it.  The 
means  of  communication  between  God  and  man  was  in  their 
thought  no  longer  limited  and  confined  to  an  ancient  revela- 
tion which  was  miraculously  sent  across  the  chasm.  The 
human  heart  is  always  oracular  and  revelation  is  a  fact  of 
all  ages  and  of  all  lands  for  obedient  souls  that  have  come 
home  to  the  holy  place  within.  Not  once  alone,  by  a  stu- 
pendous interruption  of  the  processes  of  his  world,  did  God 
bring  forth  his  Son,  but  rather  the  bringing  forth  of  his  Son 
is  the  unending  and  eternal  spiritual  event  of  human  history 
and  is  occurring  wherever  men  let  the  divine  Life  have  its 
way  unhindered  in  them.  Revelation  in  Scripture  was  to 
these  Quakers  revelation  indeed,  but,  wonderful  as  it  was,  it 
only  indicated  what  man  was  capable  of,  and  was  thus  a 
guarantee  and  prophecy  of  the  breaking  forth  of  more  light 
through  the  ages.  Christ  was  for  them  God  personally  re- 
vealed and  in  Him  they  reverently  beheld  the  union  of  God 


THE  QUAKERS  1 87 

and  man,  but  this  triumphant  fact  of  GaUlee  carried  with  it 
for  them  the  immense  impHcation  that  God  and  man  were 
of  such  a  nature  that  they  belonged  together  and  that  God 
could  always  and  everywhere  pour  his  Life  into  man  if  man 
said  yes  and  did  his  part  toward  the  companionship.  Pri- 
marily this  faith  rested  upon  and  grew  out  of  experience,  and 
it  was  dynamic  faith  only  so  long  as  it  was  rooted  and 
grounded  in  living  experience  of  this  mystical  type.  When 
it  was  translated  into  the  patois  of  controversial  tracts  and 
hardened  down  into  a  static  theory  of  the  inward  Light,  it 
became,  Uke  the  shorn  and  shaven  Samson,  weak  and  inef- 
fectual for  battle  purposes.  A  dogma  asserted  in  a  book  is 
no  match  for  an  experience  alive  and  throbbing  in  a  man, 
and  Quakerism  lost  its  marching  power  in  proportion  as  it 
dropped  from  its  stage  of  inward  mystical  vision  to  a  paper 
stage  of  assertion  about  an  abstract  principle. 

One  of  the  boldest  of  the  experiments  which  the  Quakers 
made  was  their  creation  of  a  new  type  of  meeting  for  wor- 
ship. Convinced  as  they  were  by  their  own  living  experience 
that  God  is  an  environing  Spirit  and  near  of  access  to  our 
finite  spirits,  they  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  main 
function  of  worship  is  direct  communion  with  God.  If  so, 
it  cannot  be  done  by  one  person  for  another.  As  the  attain- 
ment of  culture,  or  taste,  or  technical  skill  requires  long  and 
patient  effort,  so  communion  with  God  calls  for  personal 
preparation  of  soul,  for  practice  of  the  presence  of  God,  and 
for  the  slow  cultivation  of  the  inner  eye  and  ear.  If  the  end 
to  be  sought  in  rehgion  is  the  acquisition  of  a  set  of  views 
and  beliefs,  or  the  intellectual  mastery  of  an  ancient  revela- 
tion, then  the  sermon  becomes  a  necessary  instrument,  and 
the  centrepiece  in  the  order  of  divine  service  will  be  a  logical 
and  persuasive  interpretation  of  doctrine.  The  congregation 
will  "  gather  round  "  the  expert  minister  who  speaks  for 
them  and  to  whose  word  they  listen.    The  Quaker  thought 


1 88  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

little,  probably  too  little,  of  interpretation.  The  possibility 
of  direct  experience,  of  new  revelation,  of  immediate  com- 
munion, seemed  to  him  so  paramount  over  everything  else 
in  the  world  that  he  builded  his  entire  congregational  gather- 
ing round  that.  The  meeting  was  not  held  in  order  that  those 
present  might  hear  a  sermon,  however  freighted  with  truth; 
it  was  held  in  order  that  men  and  women  might  bring  their 
lives  into  conscious  fellowship  with  God  and  find  the  living 
streams  of  the  eternal  fountain  of  Life  flowing  in  their  own 
spirits.  They  hit  upon  group-silence  as  the  fittest  psycho- 
logical climate  for  communion,  and  with  no  appeal  of  any 
kind  to  outward  sense  and  with  nothing  to  direct  thought 
or  focus  attention  they  came  from  their  widely  scattered 
homes  and  sat  down  in  solemn  hush,  positively  expectant. 
Some  few  of  them  went  off  into  an  unmoved  quiet  and  veri- 
fied the  words  of  the  psalmist:  "He  giveth  his  beloved 
sleep."  Others  let  their  minds  wander  as  they  listed  and 
experienced  the  usual  zigzags  of  the  flight  of  unguided  asso- 
ciation. But  the  inner  "  remnant  "  concentrated  and  centred 
down  into  a  contemplation  that  was  intensely  active,  and 
marked  by  strong  emotion.  For  them  the  silence  was  like 
pauses  in  music  during  which  no  notes  are  sounded  and  yet 
the  power  and  significance  of  the  musical  piece,  far  from 
being  interrupted,  are  gathering  depth  and  volume  for  a 
new  and  intensified  burst  of  harmony.  They  knew  not  how 
it  worked,  but  by  a  subtle  telepathy,  which  they  neither 
named  nor  understood,  the  corporate  presence  of  all  helped 
each  to  reach  a  deeper  stratum  than  the  superficial  one  of 
every  day  pursuits,  and  the  concentrated  aspiration  and 
upward  yearning  somehow  took  the  soul  of  the  worshipper 
out  beyond  its  usual  margin  where  it  felt  refreshed  and  fed 
with  the  water  and  bread  of  life. 

Quite  naturally  this  exercise  —  with  its  stern  requirements 
—  did  not  appeal  to  everybody.    The  group  was  bound  to 


THE  QUAKERS  1 89 

be  small  and  select  and  specialized.  Only  those  who  had 
formed  inward  habits  of  concentration,  who  could  leave  the 
affairs  of  time  and  space  where  they  belonged  and  could 
attain  an  intensified  and  heightened  hush  found  the  Quaker 
method  of  worship  of  much  value.  To  the  undisciplined  and 
lazy  soul  the  silence  dragged  along  in  almost  unendurable 
tedium.  To  the  sensitive  spirit,  inwardly  eager  and  alert, 
and  ready  to  pay  the  full  cost  of  direct  fellowship  with  God, 
there  came  an  abiding  spiritual  fecundity.  It  consequently 
became  necessary  for  the  Quakers  to  propagate  their  re- 
ligion very  largely  through  persons  who  had  acquired  a 
peculiar  aptitude  and  habit  of  mind,  and  in  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  they  were  naturally  compelled  to 
depend  largely  upon  their  own  offspring  for  the  Quaker 
"  apostolic  succession."  The  children  were  taken  to  meeting 
from  their  earliest  years.  Twice  each  week  they  sat  in  the 
stillness  with  their  elders  and  experienced  whatever  power 
was  there  to  be  felt.  The  habit  of  sitting  still  was  formed 
almost  as  early  as  the  dawning  of  a  consciousness  of  self. 
The  expectant  attitude  of  the  group,  the  corporate  faith 
that  God  was  to  be  found  within  had  a  silent  but  no  less 
effective  sub-conscious  influence  upon  the  little  people  whose 
feet  dangled  below  the  hard  bench.  Every  meal  at  home  was 
preceded  by  a  pause  of  silence  and  though  little  was  said  in 
explanation  some  sense  of  fellowship  with  God  was  associated 
with  the  custom.  The  morning  meal  was  always  followed  — 
regardless  of  what  occupations  pressed  —  by  a  solemn 
Scripture  reading  and  by  a  period  of  silent  worship  during 
which  in  some  subtle  way  the  life  of  the  united  family  was 
lifted  up  and  linked  into  the  enveloping  Life  of  God,  so  that 
the  children  came  very  early  to  assume  and  feel  that  God 
was  a  living  and  organic  part  of  their  family.  The  approved 
books  which  were  read  aloud  in  the  evening  and  from  which 
the  children  in  some  measure  formed  their  religious  ideas 


190  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

were  journals  and  biographies  of  Quaker  worthies  who  had 
kept  the  faith  and  suffered  for  their  truth.  This  simple 
genre  literature  worked  in  the  same  direction  as  the  meetings 
and  the  family  "  sittings  "  did,  and  helped  to  repeat  and 
propagate  the  Quaker  type. 

The  meetings  for  worship,  however,  were  by  no  means 
wholly  silent.  The  silence  was  not  thought  of  as  an  end  in 
itself.  It  was  practiced,  like  a  sacrament,  as  a  means  of 
communion  and  fellowship,  and  it  was  done  in  confident 
expectation  that  one  or  more  of  the  group  would  be  brought 
up  into  spiritual  fecundity  and  be  moved  to  offer  a  prayer 
which  would  voice  the  corporate  need  of  the  meeting  or  to 
utter  a  message  which  would  express  the  word  of  God  for 
the  occasion.  All  true  ministry,  according  to  the  prevailing 
Quaker  theory,  was  prophetic  utterance.  I  do  not  mean,  of 
course,  that  the  speaker  foretold  events,  but  rather  that  he 
or  she  —  for  there  was  no  distinction  of  sexes  —  spoke  as  a 
divine  messenger  and  under  a  preparation  and  anointing 
from  above.  This  "  ministry  of  unction  "  was  not  primarily 
the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  but  it  was  rather  the  revela- 
tion of  fresh  and  present  truth.  It  was  not  a  logical  dis- 
course linked  up  with  therefores  and  wherefores,  nor  did  it 
bear  the  marks  of  study.  It  was  fused  with  emotion,  some- 
what rhythmic,  strongly  tinctured  with  bibHcal  style  and 
phraseology,  loosely  knit  and  illustrative  of  sub-conscious 
processes  of  association,  but  at  its  best  vital  and  pentecostal. 
It  avoided  doctrine,  but  it  opened  out  the  meaning  of  life 
and  made  duty  and  obedience  the  everlasting  things  by 
which  men  live.  The  best  thing  about  this  ministry  per- 
haps was  the  conviction  which  it  produced  that  the  God  who 
equipped  David  long  ago  for  his  tasks  and  who  met  Saul  the 
persecutor  in  the  way  and  turned  him  into  a  mighty  apos- 
tolic instrument,  was  still  revealing  Himself  through  men. 
Without  any  theological  training  whatever,  and  without 


THE  QUAKERS  I9I 

any  homiletic  skill,  the  Quaker  ministers  somehow  succeeded 
in  drawing  upon  their  accumulated  stock  of  spiritual  expe- 
rience and,  in  favored  moments,  they  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing even  higher  sources  of  grace,  so  that  they  often  refreshed 
their  listeners  and  sometimes  made  God  seem  very  real  and 
near  at  hand.  The  meeting  for  worship  was  thus  a  practi- 
cal experiment  in  group-mysticism  and  in  lay-rehgion,  com- 
pletely freed  from  ecclesiasticism  and  ritual. 

The  Quaker  method  of  pastoral  care  of  the  flock  was 
another  novel  experiment.  For  centuries  the  pastoral  care 
of  the  flock  in  the  church  and  the  moral  oversight  of  its 
members  had  been  assigned  in  the  main  to  the  local  minister 
in  each  parish.  He  had  a  double  mission  laid  upon  him,  to 
eroound  the  gospel  as  preacher  and  to  shepherd  the  flock 
as  pastor.  The  Friends  had  no  such  cure  of  souls  in  their 
system.  They  had,  as  we  have  seen,  no  one  in  their  local 
meetings  set  apart  to  do  the  preaching.  It  was  the  business 
of  the  corporate  group,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit,  to 
produce  its  ministry  out  of  its  own  abounding  spiritual  life. 
And  so,  too,  it  was  assumed  that  a  local  church,  without 
any  specialized  shepherd,  would  as  a  corporate  body  minis- 
ter to  the  daily  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  those  who  com- 
posed the  group.  Gradually  it  appeared  that  this  plan 
pushed  the  democratic  ideal  quite  too  far  and  for  the  sake 
of  practical  efficiency  a  differentiated  band  of  overseeing 
Friends  had  this  care  of  the  flock  definitely  laid  upon  them 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  They  were 
called  Overseers.  They  took  up  the  task  in  that  spirit  of 
devotion  and  with  that  sacred  sense  of  responsibihty  which 
have  always  been  the  characteristic  source  of  strength  in  the 
Quaker  movement.  These  overseers  were  for  the  most  part 
ordinary  men  and  women,  like  the  rest  of  the  group,  without 
any  special  training,  gifted  only  in  good  common  sense,  in 
balance  and  poise  of  character,  in  the  elemental  human 


192  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

qualities  which  breed  trust  and  confidence,  and  endowed  of 
course,  as  all  Friends  were  in  this  period,  with  an  unques- 
tioning faith  in  divine  inward  help  and  illumination  for  their 
assistance.  They  proved  to  be,  through  the  succeeding 
generations  following  their  appointment,  a  source  of  real 
spiritual  strength  and  of  moral  control  to  the  numerous 
groups  in  which  they  quietly,  unostentatiously  labored, 
and  their  ministry  of  discipline  and  of  counsel  saved  many 
from  breaking  anchor  and  drifting  on  the  rocks.  The  Over- 
seers were,  like  conscience  among  primitive  peoples,  negative 
in  their  scope.  They  dealt  adequately  with  deviations  from 
"  good  order  "  and  were  quick  to  discover  when  one  of  the 
flock  was  going  astray,  but  they  were  not  quite  so  wide 
awake  to  the  greater  possibiUties  of  positive  leadership  as 
they  should  have  been  and  they  did  not  as  fully  reaUze  the 
importance  of  convicting  men  of  righteousness  or  of  attract- 
ing them  toward  goodness  as  one  could  wish.  But  the  period 
I  am  deaUng  with  was  in  all  walks  of  life  strongly  legalistic 
in  its  temper,  and  the  principle  of  restraint  suited  the  ideals 
of  the  time  better  than  did  the  higher  principle  of  moral 
contagion. 

It  is  also  true  that  these  moral  guardians  of  the  flock  very 
often  confounded  moral  issues  with  their  own  pecuHar  no- 
tions of  piety.  What  they  called  "  simpHcity  "  or  "  plain- 
ness "  came  to  bulk  in  their  minds  as  a  matter  equally  big 
in  importance  with  the  moral  imperatives.  To  be  "  plain  " 
or  "  simple  "  meant  to  dress  in  the  approved  garb  of  the 
society;  to  use  singular  pronouns,  "  thou,"  "  thee,"  and 
"  thy,"  to  a  single  person;  to  discard  titles  such  as  '*  Mr." 
and  "  Mrs."  and  all  unnecessary  or  insincere  compliments; 
to  shun  worldly  forms  of  amusement;  to  forego  music;  to 
keep  free  of  entangling  alliances  of  marriage  with  any  per- 
son of  the  world,  that  is,  with  one  not  a  Friend,  and  to  avoid 
business  occupations  or  social  relations  which  involved  a 


THE  QUAKERS  193 

strain  on  consistency  to  the  Quaker  ideals.  After  all  these 
things,  which  we  should  now  perhaps  call  "  ceremonial," 
the  argus-eyed  Overseers  were  supposed  to  look,  and  they 
were  expected  to  report  whether  the  flock  was  "  clear  "  or 
"  not-clear,"  but  they  did  not  stop  with  the  ceremonial; 
they  went  the  full  way  on  and  endeavored  to  keep  the  mem- 
bership to  pure,  clean,  holy  lives. 

For  the  practical  accomplishment  of  their  tasks  the  over- 
seers had  an  interesting  set  of  "  Queries  "  which  formed  a 
kind  of  moral  measuring  rod  that  was  frequently  applied 
to  the  lives  of  the  members.  The  New  England  Queries 
were  as  follows : 

1.  Are  all  meetings  for  religious  worship  and  discipline  duly  at- 
tended ?  Is  the  hour  observed  ?  And  are  friends  preserved  from 
sleeping,  and  all  other  unbecoming  behavior  therein  ? 

2.  Are  love  and  unity  maintained  among  you  ?  Is  detraction 
guarded  against  ?  And  where  any  differences  arise,  are  endeavors 
used  speedily  to  end  them  ? 

3.  Are  friends  careful  to  bring  up  those  under  their  direction  in  plain- 
ness of  speech,  behavior,  and  apparel  ?  To  restrain  them  from  read- 
ing pernicious  books,  and  from  the  corrupt  conversation  of  the  world  ? 
Are  they  good  examples  herein  themselves  ?  And  are  the  Holy 
Scriptures  frequently  read  in  their  families  ? 

4.  Are  friends  careful  to  avoid  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors,  except 
for  medicine  ?  The  unnecessary  frequenting  of  taverns,  and  places 
of  public  resort  ?  And  to  keep  in  true  moderation  and  temperance,  on 
the  account  of  births,  marriages,  burials,  and  on  other  occasions  ? 

5.  Are  the  circumstances  of  the  poor,  and  of  such  as  appear  likely 
to  need  assistance,  duly  inspected,  and  their  necessities  relieved,  or 
they  assisted  in  such  business  as  they  are  capable  of  ?  Do  their  chil- 
dren freely  partake  of  learning,  to  fit  them  for  business  ?  And  are 
they,  and  other  friends'  children,  placed  among  friends  ? 

6.  Are  parents  and  heads  of  families,  with  the  young  and  unmarried, 
careful  that  all  proceedings  with  respect  to  marriage  be  conformable 
to  our  discipline  ? 

7.  Do  you  maintain  a  faithful  testimony  against  the  payment  of 
priests'  wages,  bearing  arms,  training,  or  other  military  matters  ? 


194  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Against  being  concerned  in  property  taken  in  war,  buying  or  vending 
goods  suspected  to  be  run,  and  against  making  false  entries,  to  evade 
the  payment  of  duties  ? 

8.  Are  friends  careful  to  inspect  their  affairs  and  settle  their  ac- 
counts ?  Are  they  punctual  to  their  promises,  and  just  in  the  payment 
of  their  debts,  and  careful  to  live  within  the  bounds  of  their  circum- 
stances ? 

9.  Are  friends  careful  to  have  all  their  marriages,  births,  deaths, 
and  burials  duly  recorded  ?  Are  there  any  friends  removed  from,  or 
come  amongst  you,  without  certificates  ? 

10.  Do  you  take  due  care  regularly  to  deal  with  all  offenders,  in 
the  spirit  of  meekness  and  wisdom,  without  partiality  or  unnecessary 
delay  ?  And  is  judgment  placed  where  it  appears  necessary,  in  the 
authority  of  truth,  according  to  our  Discipline  ? 

These  Queries  were  read,  in  whole  or  in  part,  four  times  in  the 
Preparative  Meeting,  four  times  in  the  Monthly  Meeting, 
four  times  in  the  Quarterly  Meeting,  and  once  in  Yearly  Meet- 
ing, so  that  a  good  Friend  was  exposed  to  them  thirteen 
times  in  a  year.  A  solemn  hush  followed  the  reading  of  them, 
and  each  member  was  given  an  opportunity  to  enter  into  a 
private  confessional  under  the  all-seeing  Eye,  and  he  could 
search  his  soul  as  with  a  candle  to  see  whether  he  himself 
was  "  clear."  Then  once  a  year  in  all  the  successive  meet- 
ings carefuUy  prepared  answers  were  read,  discussed,  and 
summarized  as  a  digest  of  "  the  state  of  the  Society."  This 
periodic  reexamination  of  conduct  and  spirit  had  a  profound 
sub-conscious  effect  and  wove  certain  community  ideals  into 
the  very  inner  substance  and  texture  of  the  members.  It 
was  obviously  enough  a  system  of  narrow  piety.  It  missed 
much  of  what  forms  the  sub-soil  of  our  present  day  social 
aspirations,  but  it  was  admirably  adapted  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  a  type  of  simple  unreflective  goodness  and  it  produced 
beyond  question  very  acute  individual  consciences. 

There  was  a  strong  puritanic  tincture  in  the  religion  of 
the  New  England  Quakers  throughout  their  history.    They 


THE  QUAKERS  195 

were,  as  I  have  said,  uncompromising.  They  had  a  deep- 
seated  fear  of  the  contaminations  of  the  world.  They  often 
favored  restraints  and  indulged  in  negations,  and  they  were 
bent  on  a  root  and  branch  extermination  of  all  marks  of 
superstition  and  apostacy,  which  had,  they  believed,  crept 
into  the  Church.  They  were,  therefore,  always  in  danger 
of  forming  a  hard,  stern  type  of  person,  oversatisfied  with 
his  own  righteousness,  critical  of  that  of  others.  Compelled 
more  or  less  to  withdraw  and  contract  in  order  to  guard 
their  consistency,  it  was  easy  for  them  to  grow  uncouth  in 
manner  and  sour  in  temper.  But  something  almost  the 
opposite  happened.  As  John  Woolman  puts  it,  "  some 
glances  of  real  beauty  might  be  seen  in  their  faces."  We 
New  Englanders  have  always  been  chary  of  the  word  "saint," 
and  we  instinctively  leave  all  fixing  of  "  calendars  "  to  the 
powers  above,  but  there  was  in  the  best  Quaker  characters, 
of  both  men  and  women,  a  fine  mingling  of  strength  and 
humility,  a  union  of  rigorous  application  of  judgment  to 
oneself  with  tenderness  for  others,  a  palpitating  fear  of  sin 
joined  with  immense  confidence  in  the  forgiving  love  of 
God.  The  best  specimens,  even  in  the  backwoods  meetings, 
revealed  a  refined  and  subHmated  nature,  not  only  sweet 
and  fragrant,  but  often  radiant  and  full  of  grace.  They 
were,  best  of  all,  unconscious  of  the  shine  on  their  faces,  and 
those  who  had  the  clearest  marks  of  triumphant  goodness 
were  the  ones  who  were  making  the  most  unrelenting  fight 
with  the  subtle  sins  of  which  only  a  near-saint  knows.  The 
Quaker  poet  Whittier,  who  himself  was  a  consummate  illus- 
tration of  the  type,  has  given  us  a  very  happy  description 
of  one  of  these  everyday  saints: 

And  if  her  life  small  leisure  found 

For  feasting  ear  and  eye, 
And  Pleasure,  on  her  daily  round, 

She  passed  impausing  by, 


196  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Yet  with  her  went  a  secret  sense 

Of  all  things  sweet  and  fair, 
And  Beauty's  gracious  providence 

Refreshed  her  unaware. 

She  kept  her  line  of  rectitude 

With  love's  unconscious  ease; 
Her  kindly  instincts  understood 

All  gentle  courtesies. 

An  inborn  charm  of  graciousness 

Made  sweet  her  smile  and  tone, 
And  glorified  her  farm-wife  dress 

With  beauty  not  its  own. 

The  dear  Lord's  best  interpreters 

Are  humble  human  souls; 
The  Gospel  of  a  life  like  hers 

Is  more  than  books  or  scrolls. 

From  scheme  and  creed  the  light  goes  out, 

The  saintly  fact  survives; 
The  blessed  Master  none  can  doubt 

Revealed  in  holy  lives. 

I  come,  finally,  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  ideas  which 
formed,  as  William  James  would  say,  "  the  keel  and  back- 
bone "  of  the  Quaker  faith.  The  religious  ideas  to  which  I 
now  refer  were  for  most  Friends  implicit  and  presupposed 
rather  than  reflectively  matured.  They  were,  like  the  math- 
ematics of  the  spider  and  the  honeybee,  woven  into  the 
fabric  of  daily  life  rather  than  consciously  envisaged  or 
explicitly  formulated.  If  you  asked  a  Friend  what  he  be- 
lieved, he  replied  that  he  would  lend  the  inquirer  a  copy  of 
Barclay's  Apology.  It  is,  however,  quite  possible  to  discover 
by  the  help  of  printed  sermons,  annual  Epistles,  biographical 
Journals,  and  the  survivals  of  personal  memory,  what  formed 
the  hving  marrow  of  the  faith  of  these  untheological  Chris- 
tians of  a  previous  generation. 


THE  QUAKERS  1 97 

The  primary  idea,  the  spring  of  their  rehgion,  was  pro- 
found beUef  in  a  hving,  present,  near-at-hand,  environing 
God,  who  has  deahngs  now  with  the  souls  of  men,  and  is 
carrying  on  in  the  world  today,  as  of  old  in  Galilee  and 
Judaea,  his  revealing  and  his  redemptive  work.  The  Christ- 
revelation  was  possible  and  was  genuinely  real  just  because 
God  is  inherently  in  nature  and  character  a  Person  who  can 
come  into  intimate  contact  and  relationship  with  men  — 
because  he  is  an  Immanuel  God.  The  unbroken  and  con- 
tinuous work  of  the  divine  Spirit  through  the  ages  —  even 
ages  that  were  dark  —  is  also  possible  and  is  also  genuinely 
real,  because  God  is  as  essentially  self-revealing  as  is  the 
mid-day  sun. 

With  this  root  idea  was  linked  also  an  idea  implied  in  it, 
namely,  that  man  was  somehow  kindred  with  God  and  al- 
ways and  everywhere  a  recipient  of  divine  love.  They  knew 
that  he  was  sadly  damaged  and  strangely  complicated  with 
sinful  tendencies,  but  they  still  insisted  that  he  was  made  for 
fellowship  with  God,  and  that  he  bore  in  the  very  structure 
of  his  soul  a  point  of  junction  with  the  eternal,  and  was  al- 
ways within  reach  of  home  and  Father.  If  any  soul  lived 
in  the  dark  his  eclipse  was  an  eclipse  which  he  himself  made, 
for  the  divine  sunlight  is  unsetting  and  never  withdrawn. 
They  did  not  anticipate  the  evolutionary  view  and  were 
loyal  to  the  story  in  Genesis,  but  they  could  not  adopt  the 
miserabilism  of  a  ruined  world  and  a  ruined  man.  Somehow 
God  was  here  and  somehow  he  was  operating  in  the  soul  as 
an  unsundered  and  undefeated  presence. 

Salvation  for  them,  again,  was  not  a  forensic  scheme.  It 
was  a  process  of  life,  culminating  triumphantly.  The  most 
penetrating  and  adequate  account  of  it  which  any  ancient 
New  England  Quaker  gave  is  that  expressed  in  the  eighteenth 
century  writings  of  a  fine  old  Quaker  itinerant  minister  of 
Rhode  Island,  Job  Scott.     Scott's  view  is  the  prevailing 


198  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Quaker  idea.  To  be  saved  is  to  be  inwardly  washed  and 
cleansed  and  brought  into  vital  relation  with  the  divine 
resources  of  life.  Until  "  the  old  man  with  his  deeds  "  is 
dead,  until  the  love  of  sin  is  conquered  by  a  higher  love, 
salvation  has  not  come  to  pass,  "  however  one  may  boast  of 
imputed  righteousness  and  cry  peace,  peace."  Christ  him- 
self, that  is,  the  divine  nature,  must  be  born  and  formed  in 
the  soul.  There  must  be  a  death  to  sin  and  a  rising  in  new- 
ness of  life,  and  the  Christian  who  is  to  walk  with  the  saved 
must  be  ready  to  go  the  whole  way  with  Christ,  both  in 
suffering  and  in  joy,  until  grace  and  truth  have  their  com- 
plete and  triumphant  work  in  him. 

But  the  Quakers,  in  spite  of  their  seeming  individuahsm, 
were  always,  at  least  implicitly  and  in  practice,  dedicated 
to  a  social  ideal.  Their  worship  involved  a  social  group. 
Their  meetings  for  the  care  of  the  church  were  extremely 
democratic  and  yet  all  business  was  done  in  unity  or  not  at 
all.  They  believed  in  the  divine  possibilities  of  all  men  and 
women.  In  their  visions  and  ideals  for  the  race  they  saw, 
dimly  perhaps  and  in  the  mist,  but  yet  they  saw  a  kingdom 
of  God  —  a  real  world  of  men  —  divinely  changed  and  in- 
wardly assisted,  living  in  peace,  living  in  love,  hving  in  posi- 
tive cooperation,  and  exhibiting  in  this  earthly  life  the 
traits  and  the  spirit  of  the  eternal  City  of  God. 

They  were,  as  I  have  been  indicating,  a  mystical  people, 
intent  upon  reahzing  what  William  James  has  called  "  a 
religion  of  veracity  rooted  in  spiritual  inwardness,"  but 
they  were  fully  as  much  absorbed  in  the  problem  of  human 
betterment,  in  the  task  of  remaking  the  social  world,  as 
they  were  in  getting  their  own  inward  peace.  They  fully 
shared  the  practical  spirit  of  their  interesting  contemporary, 
the  famous  "  Digger,"  Gerard  Winstanley.  Winstanley  in 
one  of  his  remarkable  tracts  wrote:  "  My  mind  was  not  at 
rest  because  nothing  was  acted;  and  thoughts  ran  in  me  that 


THE  QUAKERS  I99 

words  and  writings  were  all  nothing  and  must  die;  for  action 
is  the  life  of  all  and  if  thou  dost  not  act  thou  dost  nothing." 
For  them,  to  see  an  idea,  to  discover  a  truth,  was  to  practice 
it  and  put  it  into  play. 

Even  the  Quaker  peculiarities  were,  in  inception,  an  ex- 
pression of  their  desire  for  social  reform.  They  said  "  thee  " 
and  "  thou  "  to  everybody  because  it  was  the  prevailing 
custom  then  to  say  "  you  "  to  important  persons,  upper 
class  people,  and  "  thou  "  to  the  common  man,  and  they 
resolved  to  wipe  out  the  distinction  between  upper  person 
and  lower  person  and  to  maintain  one  standard  of  address 
for  man  as  man.  Their  odd  "  testimonies,"  as  they  called 
them,  which  in  time  became  more  or  less  devoid  of  signifi- 
cance and  hardly  more  than  badges  of  a  peculiar  people, 
were  in  their  origin  protests  against  sham  and  hoUowness, 
against  customs  and  forms  of  etiquette  which  were  a  burden 
to  the  life  and  which  buried  the  person  under  a  rubbish  of 
meaningless  mannerisms,  or  under  the  weary  weight  of  stupid 
fashions.  They  refused  to  take  a  judicial  oath  because  they 
maintained  that  there  should  be  only  one  standard  of  truth- 
telling,  —  to  make  one's  plain  word  on  all  occasions  as  heavy 
as  an  oath.  They  took  the  idealist  or  Utopian  position  that 
war  must  be  utterly  abolished  in  the  interest  of  human 
rights,  and  that  every  form  of  capital  punishment  must 
cease,  and  that  too  at  a  time  when  it  was  inflicted  for  more 
than  two  hundred  offences. 

They  did  not  so  much  think  these  conclusions  out  as  feel 
their  way  to  them,  somewhat  as  Tolstoy  has  described,  in 
his  "  Confessions,"  his  own  conclusion  on  seeing  a  man  exe- 
cuted: "  I  understood,  not  with  my  mind,  but  with  my 
whole  being,  that  no  theory  of  the  reasonableness  of  any 
present  progress  can  justify  this  deed;  and  that  though 
everybody  from  the  creation  of  the  world,  on  whatever 
theory,  had  held  it  to  be  necessary,  /  knew  it  to  he  unneces- 


200  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

sary  and  bad.^'  Exactly  thus  the  Quakers  felt  and  feel  about 
taking  life  in  any  form  or  for  any  reason. 

They  attacked  not  only  the  savagery  of  the  criminal  code, 
but  the  barbaric  prison  as  well,  urging,  often  to  a  heedless 
world,  that  prisons  should  be  for  correction  and  reformation, 
not  for  vengeance.  The  Quakers  took  care  of  their  own  poor 
and  they  endeavored  to  create  a  new  social  conscience  toward 
poverty  and  the  public  responsibility  for  it,  which  found  its 
finest  expression  in  the  Quaker  saint  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, John  Woolman.  They  were  the  prime  movers  in  the 
establishment  of  what  was  in  the  seventeenth  century  the 
novel  custom  of  having  a  single,  fixed,  price  for  goods  and 
merchandise,  and  they  became,  from  the  beginning  of  their 
career,  champions  of  the  less  favored  races  and  of  the  man 
who,  for  any  reason,  was  hampered  or  handicapped. 

They  had  advanced  ideas  of  the  rights  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves  and  they  worked  out  these  ideas  on  a 
large  scale  in  colonial  America.  In  Rhode  Island  the 
Quakers  held  the  governorship  for  thirty-six  terms  and  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years  they  formed  a  leading  influence 
in  the  political  affairs  of  the  colony.  They  founded  Pennsyl- 
vania and  shaped  its  development  until  the  stormy  period 
of  the  French  and  Indian  wars.  They  held  the  proprietor- 
ship of  New  Jersey  and  governed  it  until  it  became  a  royal 
colony.  Many  of  their  members  were  in  office  in  Maryland, 
and  under  the  governorship  of  the  famous  Quaker,  John 
Archdale,  they  profoundly  shaped  the  political  development 
of  the  Carolinas. 

But  while  they  have  thus,  like  John  the  Baptist,  been 
forerunners  in  great  causes  and  have  been  loud  voices  crying 
in  the  wilderness,  they  have  not  known  how  to  grow  and 
expand  with  the  growing  world.  They  have  shown  a  tend- 
ency to  be  over-interested  in  themselves,  to  spend  their 
energies  on  the  preservation  of  their  own  peculiarities  and 


THE  QUAKERS  20I 

to  treat  their  discoveries  as  "  sacred  principles  "  to  be  held 
and  guarded  rather  than  as  truths  to  be  propagated  and 
risked  in  the  stern  siftings  of  evolving  society.  If  they  once 
more  return  to  the  robust  spirit  of  their  founders  and  gain 
again  the  braver  temper  of  these  early  innovators  they  may 
have  even  yet  a  new  era  of  life. 


THE   EPISCOPALIANS 

GEORGE  HODGES 


THE   EPISCOPALIANS 

I.  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

THE  first  Episcopalians  who  appeared  in  New  England 
came  as  members  of  unsuccessful  expeditions.  In 
these  undertakings  the  prime  mover  was  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges,  commander  of  the  port  of  Plymouth. 

In  1605,  George  Weymouth  had  explored  the  Kennebec 
River  for  forty  miles,  had  set  up  a  cross  as  a  mark  of  posses- 
sion, and  had  carried  away  with  him  several  kidnapped 
natives.  These  Indians  had  been  taken  into  Sir  Ferdinando's 
household,  and  their  enthusiastic  descriptions  of  their  native 
land  had  impressed  him  greatly.  In  1607,  an  attempt  was 
made  at  permanent  colonization.  Settlers  were  sent  over 
who  found  Weymouth's  cross,  and  on  the  spot  thus  conse- 
crated a  religious  service  was  held  by  Sir  Richard  Seymour, 
who  was  to  be  the  chaplain  of  the  colony.  This  was  the  first 
service  conducted  by  any  English  minister  of  religion  within 
the  territory  now  called  New  England.  The  plans  of  the 
settlers  were  defeated,  however,  by  frost  and  fire.  In  the 
midst  of  an  uncommonly  cold  winter  their  houses  were 
burned,  and  they  set  sail  for  home. 

Sir  Ferdinando,  undiscouraged,  undertook  presently  a 
larger  enterprise.  In  1620,  King  James  graciously  presented 
to  him  and  other  patentees  the  entire  coast  of  New  England 
from  Narragansett  to  the  Bay  of  Fundy.  The  company  who 
came  to  take  possession  of  this  territory  were  concerned  not 
only  in  the  better  establishment  and  regulation  of  trade  but 
in  "  the  advancement  of  religion  in  those  desert  parts." 
They  had  a  missionary  purpose.    Being  good  churchmen, 


206  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

they  intended  not  only  to  enjoy  the  privileges  of  religion,  but 
to  admit  to  these  privileges  their  new  neighbors,  the  Indians. 
They  entered  New  England  in  the  name  not  only  of  the 
crown  but  of  the  church.  Thus,  with  Robert  Gorges,  Sir 
Ferdinando's  youngest  son,  the  commander  of  the  expedition, 
came  the  Rev.  WiUiam  Morell,  to  whom  was  committed,  "  I 
know  not,"  says  Bradford,  "  what  power  and  authority  of 
superintendancie  over  the  churches,  and  sundry  instructions 
for  that  end."  It  was  a  matter  in  which  the  reHgious  com- 
munity already  existing  at  Plymouth  was  naturally  interested. 

The  Massachusetts  expedition,  however,  like  its  prede- 
cessor in  Maine,  failed.  Gorges  with  most  of  his  followers 
returned  to  England.  But  Morell  continued  on  for  the  space 
of  a  year.  He  was  a  very  quiet  gentleman,  and  showed  no 
disposition  to  assert  his  powers  of  episcopal  supervision. 
Indeed,  it  was  only  at  the  time  when  he  finally  went  to 
Plymouth  to  take  passage  from  that  port  to  London  that 
he  informed  the  brethren  as  to  the  nature  of  his  original 
errand.  Meanwhile,  he  employed  what  he  called  his  "  melan- 
choly leisures  "  in  writing  a  poem  in  Latin  hexameters  and 
translating  it  into  English  verse.  This  was  printed  in  London, 
on  his  return  in  1625,  under  the  title,  "  New  England,  or  A 
Briefe  Ennaration  of  the  Ayre,  Earth,  Water,  Fish,  and 
Fowles  of  that  Country.  With  a  Description  of  the  Natures, 
Orders,  Habits,  and  Religion  of  the  Natives."  Bradford 
says  that  he  never  showed  his  authority,  or  made  any  use 
of  it,  because  "  it  should  seeme  he  saw  it  was  in  vaine." 

Two  of  Morell's  friends  still  remained  and  spent  the  rest 
of  their  lives  in  New  England.  When  the  Puritans  came 
over  from  Salem  in  1629  to  begin  the  settlement  of  Charles- 
town,  they  found  Samuel  Maverick  proprietor  of  Noddle's 
Island,  or  Chelsea,  and  WiUiam  Blackstone  proprietor  of 
the  three  mountains  and  other  lands  adjacent,  now  covered 
by  the  city  of  Boston. 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  207 

They  said  of  Maverick  that  he  was  "  a  man  of  loving  and 
courteous  behaviour,  very  ready  to  entertaine  strangers,  yet 
an  enemy  to  the  reformation  in  hand,  being  strong  for  the 
lordly  prelatical  power."  Although  a  layman  he  seems  to 
have  been  a  stouter  and  much  more  aggressive  churchman 
than  his  clerical  neighbor  the  Rev.  William  Blackstone,  who 
may  have  been  intended  as  assistant  to  Mr.  Morell  had  the 
plans  of  the  colony  been  carried  out,  and  who  was  quite  as 
unobtrusive  a  person  as  his  chief,  and  quite  as  unregardful  of 
his  duty  to  convert  the  Indians  or  the  Puritans.  His  famous 
saying,  "  I  have  come  from  England  because  I  did  not  Hke 
the  lord  bishops,  but  I  cannot  join  with  you  because  I  would 
not  be  under  the  lord  brethren,"  indicates  his  place  in  the 
ascending  and  descending  scale  of  churchmanship.  He  was 
content  to  live  beside  his  spring  of  clear  water,  in  the  midst 
of  his  green  farm,  watching  the  progress  of  the  fruit  trees 
which  he  had  planted.  It  is  said  that  afterwards,  in  the 
Providence  Plantations,  "  near  to  Master  Williams,  but  far 
from  his  opinions,"  he  resumed  the  exercise  of  his  ministry; 
but  the  name  "  Study  Hill  "  which  he  gave  to  his  new  resi- 
dence, in  what  is  now  Lonsdale,  R.  I.,  shows  the  direction  of 
his  real  interests. 

Two  other  early  Christians  of  the  Episcopal  sort  in  New 
England  were  not  only  equally  lacking  in  any  definite  con- 
tribution to  religion  in  these  parts,  but  rather  contributed  — 
so  their  Puritan  neighbors  said  —  to  irreligion. 

Already,  in  1622,  Thomas  Morton  had  established  him- 
self with  a  little  congenial  company  at  Merrymount,  in  the 
present  town  of  Quincy.  There  he  combined  the  custom  of 
reading  the  prayers  according  to  the  rubrics  of  the  church 
with  a  manner  of  life  which  displeased  and  alarmed  his  more 
sober  neighbors.  He  was  even  more  frank  than  Blackstone 
in  expressing  his  opinion  of  Puritans;  he  preferred  Indians. 
"  I  found  two  sorts  of  people,"  he  says,  "  the  one  Christians, 


208  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  other  infidels;  these  I  found  most  full  of  humanity,  and 
more  friendly  than  the  other."  It  is  no  doubt  true  that 
Morton  was  "  more  addicted  to  the  feasts  than  to  the  fasts 
of  the  church."  He  kept  Christmas  with  much  festivity, 
and  worshipped  —  the  Puritans  said  —  "  the  Roman  God- 
dess Flora  "  by  leading  his  household  in  a  merry  dance  about 
a  Maypole.  But  Samuel  Maverick  found  him  a  "  gentle- 
man of  good  qualitie,"  and  John  Fiske  says  that  the  accusa- 
tion brought  against  him  of  setting  up  a  "  Schoole  of  athism  " 
was  probably  "  based  upon  the  fact  that  he  used  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,"  He  did  undoubtedly  introduce  an 
element  of  serious  danger  into  the  situation  by  providing 
his  friends,  the  natives,  with  rum  and  muskets.  The  com- 
bination menaced  not  only  the  peace  but  the  very  existence 
of  the  settlements.  Myles  Standish  came  up  from  Plymouth 
and  dispersed  the  men  of  Merrymount.  Endicott  came  over 
from  Salem  and  cut  down  the  Maypole. 

About  the  same  time  the  Plymouth  people  were  having 
difficulty  nearer  home  with  another  churchman,  the  Rev.  John 
Lyford.  He  had  come  over,  by  the  appointment  and  at  the 
charge  of  the  merchant  adventurers  who  financed  the  Ply- 
mouth Colony,  to  be  the  pastor  of  the  congregation.  The 
Plymouth  people  had  desired  Robinson  of  Leyden,  but  an 
unfriendly  majority  sent  Lyford  in  his  place.  The  independ- 
ence of  the  parish  was  so  far  respected  as  to  leave  them  free 
to  reject  him  if  they  wished.  And  this  seems  to  have  ap- 
peared not  altogether  unlikely.  "  We  have  sent  you  a 
preacher,"  said  the  company,  "  an  honest,  plaine  man, 
though  none  of  the  most  eminente  and  rare.  About  choosing 
him  into  office  use  your  owne  liberty  and  discretion.  He 
knows  he  is  no  officer  among  you,  though  perhaps  custom 
and  universalitie  may  make  him  forget  himself."  At  the 
same  time  they  sent  a  carpenter,  who,  they  said,  "  is  thought 
to  be  the  fittest  man  for  you  in  all  the  land,  and  will  no  doubt 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  209 

doe  you  much  good."  They  had  great  confidence  in  the 
carpenter. 

Under  these  difi&cult  conditions  Mr.  Lyford  entered  upon 
such  duties  as  devolved  upon  an  Episcopal  minister  set  in 
charge  of  a  Separatist  Congregation.  The  episcopal  ele- 
ments in  the  situation  he  immediately  adjusted  to  the  en- 
vironment by  behaving  himself,  on  his  first  arrival,  with 
'*  that  reverence  and  humilitie  as  is  seldom  to  be  seen," 
desiring  to  join  their  church,  and  being  received  into  it  after 
a  "large  confession  of  his  faith,  and  an  acknowledgement  of 
his  former  disorderly  walking. "  It  was  found,  however,  after  a 
little,  that  the  new  pastor,  together  with  John  Oldham,  who 
became  his  close  friend,  was  writing  letters  to  the  company 
filled  with  criticism  of  the  brethren.  The  matter  was  a  seri- 
ous one,  for  the  colony  was  dependent  on  the  company.  And 
the  governor  was  certain  of  the  guilt  of  Lyford,  having  taken 
the  precaution  to  open  and  read  his  letters.  It  appeared 
by  this  correspondence  that  Lyford  and  Oldham  and  other 
conspirators  intended  to  withdraw  from  their  neighbors  and 
set  up  a  public  meeting  apart,  and,  as  they  expressed  it, 
"  have  the  sacraments."  They  were  accordingly  put  on 
trial  for  schism  and  sedition,  and,  with  abundant  allowance 
of  time  whether  for  repentance  or  for  preparation,  were 
sentenced  to  expulsion.  Bradford  says  nothing  about  the 
use  of  the  Prayer  Book  as  one  of  their  offences,  but  Morton, 
in  his  New  English  Canaan  declares  that  their  essential 
transgression  consisted  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Church.  "  The 
booke  of  common  prayer,"  said  their  adversaries,  "  what 
poore  thing  is  that,  for  a  man  to  reade  in  a  booke  ?  No,  no, 
good  sirs,  I  would  you  were  neere  us,  you  might  receave 
comfort  by  instruction  —  give  me  a  man  that  hath  the  guiftes 
of  the  spirit,  not  a  booke  in  his  hand." 

Lyford  and  Oldham  came  up  to  Naumkeag,  where  they 
joined  Roger  Conant  in  a  scheme  for  a  new  settlement  of 


2IO  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

which  Conant  was  to  be  the  governor,  Lyford  the  minister, 
and  Oldham  the  trader  with  the  Indians.  But  Lyford,  in 
response  to  "  a  loving  invitation,"  went  to  Virginia,  where 
he  shortly  after  died.  It  was  in  celebration  of  the  peaceful 
adjustment  of  differences  between  Conant's  men  and  Endi- 
cott's  men  that  Naumkeag  was  called  Salem.  In  1629,  for 
the  further  preservation  of  this  peace,  the  brothers  Brown, 
Samuel  and  John,  were  sent  away.  The  settlers  had  defi- 
nitely organized  themselves  into  a  Congregational  Society, 
after  the  pattern  of  Plymouth.  The  Browns  protested  and 
declared  that  so  far  as  they  were  concerned  they  would 
continue  to  use  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  They  were 
informed  that  there  was  no  convenient  place  in  New  England 
for  the  use  of  that  book,  certainly  not  in  Salem.  They 
were  put  on  board  the  next  returning  ship,  and  sent  to 
England. 

Meanwhile,  the  enthusiasm  of  Sir  Ferdinando  continued. 
Leaving  for  the  moment  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  in 
possession,  he  secured  in  1635,  a  grant  of  the  country  between 
the  Kennebec  and  the  Merrimac,  to  which  was  given  the 
name  of  Maine.  For  this  province  he  planned  a  government, 
under  a  royal  charter,  in  which  reUgion  was  established  ac- 
cording to  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of  the  Church  of 
England.  The  Rev.  Richard  Gibson  was  the  first  minister  in 
this  district,  having  his  church  and  parsonage  at  Ports- 
mouth, N.  H.  The  second  minister  was  the  Rev.  Robert 
Jordan  of  Casco,  now  called  Portland. 

This  situation,  with  an  Episcopal  colony  north  of  the 
Merrimac  and  a  Puritan  colony  south  of  it,  was  most  dis- 
pleasing to  the  Puritans,  one  of  whose  chief  purposes  in 
coming  to  these  shores  had  been  to  get  as  far  away  as  possible 
from  prelatical  Episcopalians.  It  was  therefore  with  much 
satisfaction  that  they  discovered  that  the  Merrimac,  instead 
of  proceeding  in  a  straight  fine  from  west  to  east,  had  a 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  211 

sharp  turn  in  it,  and  came  down  out  of  some  unknown  region 
in  the  north;  for  the  boundary  Hne  was  described  in  the 
charter  as  three  miles  north  of  the  Merrimac.  Where  then 
did  that  river  begin  ?  Endicott  sent  men  up  to  find  out,  and 
they  located  the  source  of  the  river  in  Lake  Winnepesaukee. 
There  on  a  convenient  rock  they  cut  the  name  of  John  Endi- 
cott, and  their  own  initials:  E.  J.  for  Edward  Johnson,  who 
wrote  the  Wonder-Working  Providence  of  Sion^s  Saviour, 
S.  W.  for  Captain  Simon  Willard.  The  inscription  is  legible 
to  this  day.  Then  they  measured  from  a  point  three  miles 
north  straight  across  the  map  and  thus  established  the  upper 
boundary  of  Massachusetts  on  a  line  running  from  Lake 
Winnepesaukee  to  Casco  Bay.  By  this  ingenious  procedure 
the  Puritans  by  a  single  motion  of  a  pencil  along  the  edge 
of  a  ruler,  included  within  their  own  lawful  possessions 
practically  all  of  the  Episcopal  colony  that  was  worth  hav- 
ing. That  was  in  1652,  when  the  Commonwealth  was  in 
power  in  England.  Already  Dr.  Gibson,  for  opposing  the 
encroachments  of  Massachusetts,  had  been  put  out  of  his 
parish.  Mr.  Jordan,  persisting  in  the  use  of  the  Prayer 
Book,  baptizing  children,  and  using  the  service  of  marriage, 
was  several  times  fined  and  imprisoned.  When  he  died,  in 
1679,  there  was  no  Episcopal  minister  remaining  in  the  whole 
territory  of  New  England. 

Of  course,  in  a  sense,  all  of  the  Puritan  ministers  were 
Episcopalians.  They  had  been  ordained  in  the  Church  of 
England.  In  the  Anglican  Communion,  then  as  now,  there 
were  two  parties.  Low  Church  and  High  Church.  The 
adjectives  indicated  the  importance  which  they  attached 
to  the  Liturgy  and  to  the  Episcopate.  Under  the  ill-advised 
urging  of  the  High  Church  brethren,  led  by  Archbishop 
Laud,  the  Low  Church  brethren  had  come  to  the  conviction 
that  the  Liturgy  and  the  Episcopate  were  of  no  importance 


212  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

whatever.     They  were  in  the  curious  position  of  Episco- 
palians who  disused  the  Prayer  Book  and  defied  the  bishops. 

Thus,  Higginson,  taking  leave  of  England,  in  1629,  said, 
"  We  will  not  say,  as  the  separatists  were  wont  to  say  at 
their  leaving  of  England,  '  Farewell,  Babylon!  farewell, 
Rome! '  but  we  will  say,  Farewell,  dear  England!  farewell, 
the  Church  of  God  in  England,  and  all  the  Christian  friends 
there!  We  do  not  go  to  New  England  as  separatists  from 
the  Church  of  England;  though  we  cannot  but  separate 
from  the  corruptions  of  it;  but  we  go  to  practice  the  positive 
part  of  church  reformation,  and  propagate  the  gospel  in 
America."  And  Winthrop  said,  "  We  esteem  it  an  honor 
to  call  the  Church  of  England,  from  whence  we  rise,  our  dear 
mother,  and  cannot  part  from  our  native  land,  where  she 
specially  resides,  without  much  sadness  of  heart  and  many 
tears  in  our  eyes.  For  acknowledging  that  such  hope  and 
faith  as  we  have  obtained  in  the  common  salvation  we  have 
received  in  her  bosom  and  sucked  it  from  her  breasts,  we  leave 
it  not,  therefore,  as  loathing  that  milk  wherewith  we  were  nour- 
ished there;  but,  blessing  God  for  parentage  and  education 
as  members  of  the  same  God,  shall  always  rejoice  in  her  good, 
and  unfeignedly  grieve  for  any  sorrow  that  shall  ever  betide 
her,  and,  while  we  draw  breath,  sincerely  desire  and  endeavor 
the  continuance  and  abundance  of  her  welfare,  with  the 
enlargement  of  her  bounds  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  Jesus." 

These  men  were  churchmen.  John  Cotton  was  a  church- 
man; so  were  Hooker  and  Shepard.  John  Harvard  was  a 
churchman.  The  name  "  Puritan,"  by  which  they  were 
called,  meant  what  "  Low  Churchman  "  means  today,  and 
designated  a  party  not  outside  the  church  but  within  it. 
That  their  low-churchmanship,  beginning  with  non-con- 
formity to  details  which  they  considered  unessential,  widened 
presently  into  separation,  was  due  in  part  to  the  long  space 
of  ocean  which  lay  between  them  and  England,  and  to  their 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  213 

natural  neighborliness  with  the  godly  separatists  of  Ply- 
mouth, but  still  more  to  the  war  which  embittered  the  old 
controversies  with  the  tragedies  of  battle.  It  was  not  Win- 
throp,  nor  Higginson,  but  Charles  and  Laud  who  carried  the 
New  England  Puritans  outside  the  Church  of  England. 

When  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Protectorate  were  over, 
and  the  crown  and  the  church  were  together  restored  in 
England,  the  division  in  religion  on  these  shores  was  empha- 
sized by  the  political  situation.  The  Puritan  colony  of 
Massachusetts  was  made  a  royal  province,  and  in  1686,  the 
ship  which  brought  Joseph  Dudley  to  be  president  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Maine,  and  New  Hampshire,  brought  also  the 
Rev.  Robert  Ratcliffe  to  conduct  the  services  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  in  Boston.  Thus  came  the  Church 
of  England  in  company  with  the  tyranny  of  the  Stuarts. 

The  Puritans  were  quite  right  in  identifying  the  religious 
with  the  political  situation.  Governor  Cranfield  of  New 
Hampshire  had  written  to  England  to  express  his  humble 
opinion,  as  a  churchman,  "  that  it  will  be  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  admit  no  person  into  any  place  of  trust,  but  such  as 
will  take  the  sacrament  and  are  conformable  to  the  rites  of 
the  Church  of  England."  This  was  a  proposition  to  com- 
pletely reverse  the  existing  order,  to  disestablish  the  Puritan 
theocracy  and  put  the  Church  of  England  in  the  place  of  it. 
Cranfield  said  further,  "  I  utterly  despair  of  any  true  duty 
and  obedience  paid  to  his  Majesty  until  their  college  be 
suppressed  and  their  ministers  silenced."  The  endeavor  to 
put  these  ideas  into  effect  in  New  Hampshire  had  not  been 
successful.  But  nobody  could  safely  predict  the  immediate 
future  in  Massachusetts. 

When,  therefore.  Judge  Sewall  wrote  in  his  Diary  under 
date  of  Sabbath,  May  30,  1686,  "  My  son  reads  to  me  in 
course  the  26th  of  Isaiah,  and  we  sing  the  141st  psalm,  both 
exceedingly  suited  to  the  day  wherein  there  is  to  be  worship 


214  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

according  to  the  Church  of  England  as  'tis  called,  in  the  town- 
house  by  countenance  of  authority,"  we  look  for  expressions 
of  pious  fear  and  righteous  indignation.  The  Isaiah  passage 
might  have  been  taken  by  an  unprejudiced  reader  to  welcome 
the  advent  of  true  religion:  "  Open  ye  the  gates,  that  the 
righteous  nation  which  keepeth  the  truth  may  enter  in." 
But  the  psalm  uttered  the  emotions  of  the  Puritan  soul: 
"  Lord,  I  cry  unto  thee,  make  haste  unto  me.  Incline  not 
my  heart  to  any  evil  thing,  to  practice  wicked  works  with 
men  that  work  iniquity,  and  let  me  not  eat  of  their  dainties. 
Our  bones  are  scattered  at  the  grave's  mouth,  as  when  one 
cutteth  and  cleaveth  wood  upon  the  earth.  Keep  me  from 
the  snares  which  they  have  laid  for  me,  and  the  gins  of  the 
workers  of  iniquity.  Let  the  wicked  fall  into  their  own  nets, 
whilst  that  I  withal  escape." 

It  was  a  week  later,  on  June  6,  that  the  building  was  actu- 
ally used  for  the  first  time.  Application  had  been  made  for 
the  use  of  one  of  the  three  meeting-houses,  but  had  been 
refused,  and  the  service  was  said  in  "  the  hbrary  room  in 
the  east  end  of  the  town-house,"  on  the  site  of  the  present 
building  of  the  Old  State  House.  At  the  same  time  wardens 
were  elected,  and  "  Mr.  Smith  the  joiner  "  was  employed 
to  make  twelve  benches  to  seat  the  congregation.  In  the 
middle  of  August  the  senior  warden  was  asking  Judge  Sewall 
for  a  contribution  toward  the  building  of  a  church,  "  and 
seemed  to  go  away  displeased,"  says  Sewall,  "  because  I 
spake  not  up  to  it."  Meanwhile,  we  learn  from  a  letter 
written  by  Edward  Randolph,  who  was  the  most  zealous 
churchman  in  these  parts,  that  the  company  of  the  faithful 
was  increasing  beyond  expectation.  They  had  left  the 
library  of  the  town-house  for  the  Exchange,  where  they  had 
"  Common  Prayer  and  two  sermons  every  Sunday,  and  at 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  Wednesdays  and  Fridays 
the  whole  service  of  the  church." 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  215 

In  December  of  that  year,  Sir  Edmund  Andros  became 
governor.  On  the  very  day  of  his  arrival  he  asked  for  a 
meeting-house  in  which  the  church  service  might  be  held, 
suggesting  some  adjustment  of  time  so  that  the  Episcopa- 
Hans  and  the  Puritans  might  use  the  same  building  at  dif- 
ferent hours  on  the  same  day.  The  Puritan  ministers  met 
and  agreed  that  they  "  could  not  with  a  good  conscience 
consent  that  our  meeting-house  should  be  made  use  of  for  the 
Common-Prayer  worship."  Saturday  of  that  week  was 
Christmas  Day,  and  the  governor,  who  had  absented  him- 
self from  the  Thursday  Lecture,  went  to  the  church  service 
twice. 

Nothing  of  further  importance  happened  until  Lent. 
Then  on  the  Tuesday  of  Holy  Week,  the  governor  viewed 
the  three  meeting-houses.  On  Wednesday,  he  sent  Randolph 
for  the  key  of  the  South  Church.  We  tell  him,  says  Judge 
Sewall,  "  that  we  can't  consent  to  part  with  it  to  such  use." 
No  matter;  on  Good  Friday,  March  25,  1687,  the  sexton, 
"  Goodman  Needham,  though  he  had  resolved  to  the  con- 
trary, was  prevailed  upon  to  ring  the  bell,  and  open  the  door 
at  the  governor's  command,"  Note  is  made  that  Smith  the 
joiner  and  HiU  the  shoemaker  were  "  very  busy  about  it." 
On  Easter  Day,  the  Episcopalians  met  in  the  South  Meeting- 
house at  eleven,  telling  the  proprietors  to  come  at  half-past 
one,  but  the  service  lasted  until  after  two.  "  'Twas  a  sad 
sight,"  says  Sewall,  "  to  see  how  full  the  street  was  with 
people  gazing  and  moving  to  and  fro,  because  they  had  not 
entrance  into  the  house." 

This  arrangement  was  so  inconvenient,  and  served  so 
continually  to  increase  the  common  enmity  against  the  in- 
vading church,  that  the  governor  and  his  council  took  a 
corner  of  the  burying-ground  and  proceeded  there  to  erect 
another  building  for  their  own  undivided  use.  The  founda- 
tions were  laid  in  October,  1688,  and  the  first  service  in  the 


2l6  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

new  church  was  said  on  Sunday,  June  8,  1689.  Already, 
however,  in  England  the  Restoration  had  been  followed  by 
the  Revolution.  Out  went  King  James,  in  came  King 
William.  Before  the  church  was  completed,  Randolph  and 
Andros  were  expelled;  within  a  month  after  the  first  ser- 
vice, the  Rev.  Robert  Ratcliffe  prudently  returned  to 
England.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  Puritans  exercised  itself 
upon  the  building,  whose  windows  were  broken,  and  its 
doors  and  walls  defiled  with  filth  (a  contemporary  record 
says),  "  in  the  rudest  and  basest  manner  imaginable." 
Thus  ended  the  second  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Epis- 
copalians in  New  England. 

The  affiliation  of  the  churchmen  with  the  House  of  Stuart 
has  obscured  the  fact  that  they  were  contending  for  religious 
liberty.  It  is  true  that  they  were  of  the  same  temper  and 
disposition  as  the  Puritans  themselves  and  opposed  the  Puri- 
tan uniformity  in  the  hope  of  establishing  an  Episcopal  uni- 
formity in  the  place  of  it.  They  were  thus  behind  Roger 
Williams,  the  Baptist,  and  William  Robinson,  the  Quaker, 
who  were  their  partners  in  substantially  the  same  business; 
for  WilHams  and  Robinson  asked  only  the  right  to  live  in 
Massachusetts  in  peace.  But  they  were  on  the  general  level 
of  their  age.  Puritans  and  churchmen  agreed  in  their  con- 
scientious insistence  on  the  principle  of  uniformity  in  religion. 
They  disagreed  in  their  idea  of  the  rehgion  under  whose 
authority  all  men  must  be  brought.  It  is  nevertheless  a  fact 
that  in  the  history  of  New  England  their  two  negatives  made 
one  great  affirmative.  Randolph  and  Andros  —  naturally 
maligned  by  their  Puritan  neighbors  but  honest  and  devout 
gentlemen  notwithstanding  —  dealt  a  blow  against  intoler- 
ance, under  which  the  whole  substance  of  the  Puritan  ad- 
ministration staggered.  They  succeeded,  in  spite  of  the 
Puritans,  in  building  in  Boston  a  church  of  their  own  kind, 
and  in  securing  freedom  to  worship  God  in  their  own  way. 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  217 

The  third  attempt  of  the  Episcopalians  to  cultivate  the 
reluctant  soil  of  New  England  was  directed  by  the  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 

As  early  as  1649,  ^  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  New  England  had  been  projected,  but  the  behead- 
ing of  King  Charles  and  the  political  and  ecclesiastical 
changes  which  ensued  had  prevented  its  organization.  In 
1 66 1,  King  Charles  II  had  incorporated  "  several  persons 
into  one  Society  or  Company  for  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  New  England  and  parts  adjacent  in  America."  The  pur- 
pose, as  set  forth  in  the  charter,  was  to  convert  the  "  heathen 
natives."  It  was  remarked,  however,  in  the  same  document, 
that  it  was  "  the  unhappiness  of  New  England  and  the  ad- 
joining parts  to  be  first  planted  and  inhabited  by  persons 
who  were  generally  disaffected  to  the  church  by  law  estab- 
lished in  England,"  and  it  was  felt  to  be  necessary  to  provide 
for  a  "  regular  and  orthodox  ministry  to  be  sent  and  settled 
among  them,  to  remove  those  prejudices  under  which  the 
people  generally  labored,  and  to  promote,  as  much  as  pos- 
sible, an  agreement  in  faith  and  worship  in  order  to  the 
recommending  our  holy  religion  to  unbelievers."  As  the 
century  came  to  an  end,  and  further  changes  in  politics 
suggested  further  changes  in  religion,  it  seemed  wise  to  found 
a  society  which  should  take  under  its  charge  the  advance- 
ment of  rehgion  not  in  New  England  only,  but  in  other 
colonies  also.  The  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  Foreign  Parts  was  accordingly  established  in  1701.  This 
society  sent  over,  as  a  travelling  missionary,  the  Rev.  George 
Keith. 

Keith  was  already  acquainted  with  America,  having  been 
a  Quaker  preacher  in  Philadelphia.  He  arrived  in  Boston 
in  June,  1702,  and  was  kindly  received  both  by  the  governor 
and  the  deputy-governor  and  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  Miles  and 
the  Rev.  Christopher  Bridge,  who  had  succeeded  Robert  Rat- 


21 8  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

cliffe  as  minister  in  charge  of  what  Keith  in  his  Journal  calls 
the  Queen's  Chapel,  There  he  held  forth  in  a  manner  which, 
he  says,  "  did  greatly  alarm  the  independent  preachers," 
Increase  Mather  immediately  printed  a  reply  to  Keith's 
sermon,  and  Keith  printed  a  reply  to  Mather,  On  Wednes- 
day, July  I,  the  missionary  attended  the  commencement 
exercises  at  Harvard  College,  and  "  having  heard  Mr,  Sam- 
uel Willard,  president  of  the  college,  at  the  said  commence- 
ment maintain  some  assertion  that  seemed  to  me,"  he 
says,  "  very  unsound,  the  next  day  I  writ  a  letter  to  him  in 
Latin,  showing  my  great  distaste  to  those  his  assertions," 
Keith  printed  his  letter,  Willard  printed  a  reply  to  Keith, 
and  Keith  printed  a  reply  to  Willard,  In  this  aggressive 
manner  the  representative  of  the  Society  began  his  mission. 
His  chief  controversy,  however,  was  with  the  Quakers, 
whose  errors  he  knew  by  personal  experience.  In  Lynn,  in 
Salem,  in  Hampton,  in  Dover,  then  in  Newport,  and  other 
places  in  Rhode  Island,  he  appeared  in  Quaker  meetings  to 
the  great  disturbance  of  the  peace.  Thence  he  went  to 
New  York,  and  to  Philadelphia,  and  even,  as  he  said  on  the 
title-page  of  his  Report,  to  "  Caratuck,"  in  North  Carolina. 

Keith  spent  two  years  in  this  peregrination,  calling  to- 
gether the  people  of  the  Church  of  England,  holding  services 
according  to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  ad\dsing  the 
Society  in  London  as  to  the  places  to  which  they  might  send 
regular  and  orthodox  ministers  to  the  best  advantage. 

The  seed  thus  planted  in  New  England  came  first  to  flower 
and  fruit  in  Rhode  Island,  The  Society  sent  to  Newport 
the  Rev,  James  Honey  man,  allowing  to  the  minister  an  annual 
stipend  of  fifty  pounds,  and  fifteen  pounds  in  addition  "  to- 
wards furnishing  and  adorning  their  church  with  a  chalice, 
patten,  cloth  for  pulpit  and  communion  table,  and  other 
ornaments,"  A  church  was  built  then  in  1702,  and  in  1703 
the  minister  and  vestry  reported  that  they  were  building  a 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  219 

steeple  and  enlarging  the  church  by  a  new  gallery.  This 
structure  is  still  standing,  as  is  also  the  Narragansett 
Church,  erected  in  1707.  St.  Michael's  Church  was  founded 
in  Bristol  in  17 19,  and  St.  John's  Church,  then  called  King's 
Chapel,  in  Providence,  in  1722. 

The  original  seal  of  the  Society  showed  a  ship  with  sails 
set  arriving  at  these  shores,  in  the  prow  a  black-gowned 
parson  holding  an  open  Bible,  and  on  the  land  the  heathen 
natives  hastening  from  all  directions  with  outstretched, 
welcoming  hands.  This  vision  of  the  conversion  of  the 
Indians  was  never  realized.  The  heathen  natives  proved 
to  be  actively  hostile.  The  work  of  the  Society  affected 
only  the  English  settlers.  It  consisted  in  part  in  giving 
much-needed  financial  aid,  helping  to  pay  salaries  and  to 
build  churches;  but  still  more,  in  providing  the  new  parishes 
with  ministers  of  good  character.  The  Society  was  exceed- 
ingly careful  about  the  men  whom  it  selected.  Their  records 
were  examined,  testimonials  were  required  from  their  bishops, 
excellent  suggestions  were  made  as  to  the  details  of  their 
grave  demeanor,  and  they  were  expected  to  make  regular 
reports  of  their  ministrations.  If  they  laid  themselves  open 
to  serious  complaints  from  their  parishioners  or  others,  they 
were  recalled.  Even  the  manner  in  which  they  conducted 
their  inevitable  controversies  was  examined.  Mr.  John 
Checkley  of  Boston  was  so  zealous,  animated,  and  outspoken 
in  his  defence  of  episcopacy  that  he  found  it  difficult  to  get 
a  bishop  to  ordain  him. 

This  high  standard  of  clerical  character  was  still  further 
maintained  by  a  remarkable  series  of  accessions  to  the  min- 
istry of  the  Episcopalians  from  the  ministry  of  the  Congre- 
gationalists  and  Presbyterians.  The  first  of  these  converts 
was  the  Rev.  Timothy  Cutler. 

In  1722,  at  the  close  of  the  commencement  exercises  of 
Yale  College,  the  president  and  faculty  requested  a  confer- 


220  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

ence  with  the  trustees,  and  presented  to  them  an  extraordi- 
nary statement.  "  Reverend  Gentlemen,"  they  said, 
"  having  represented  to  you  the  difificulties  which  we  labor 
under  in  relation  to  our  continuance  out  of  the  visible  com- 
munion of  an  Episcopal  Church,  and  a  state  of  seeming  op- 
position thereto,  either  as  private  Christians  or  as  officers, 
and  so  being  insisted  on  by  some  of  you  (after  our  repeated 
declarations  of  it)  that  we  should  sum  up  our  case  in  writing, 
we  do  (though  with  great  reluctance,  fearing  the  conse- 
quences of  it)  submit  to  and  comply  with  it:  And  signify 
to  you  that  some  of  us  doubt  the  validity,  and  the  rest  of 
us  are  more  fully  persuaded  of  the  invalidity,  of  Presby- 
terian ordination  in  opposition  to  Episcopal,  and  should  be 
heartily  thankful  to  God  and  man  if  we  may  receive  from 
them  satisfaction  therein,  and  shall  be  willing  to  embrace 
your  good  counsels  and  instructions  in  relation  to  this  im- 
portant affair  as  far  as  God  shall  direct  and  dispose  us  to  do." 

This  statement  was  signed  by  the  two  gentlemen  who  then 
composed  the  Yale  faculty :  Cutler,  the  president,  and  Daniel 
Brown,  the  tutor;  and  also  by  five  Congregational  ministers. 
President  Woolsey,  recalling  the  event  on  the  occasion  of 
the  one-hundred-and-fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
the  college,  said,  "  I  suppose  that  greater  alarm  would  scarcely 
be  awakened  now  if  the  theological  faculty  were  to  declare 
for  the  Church  of  Rome,  avow  their  belief  in  transubstanti- 
ation,  and  pray  to  the  Virgin  Mary." 

The  fear  of  the  consequences  which  the  signers  frankly 
confessed  was  immediately  justified.  The  trustees  asked 
for  the  resignations  of  Brown  and  Cutler,  and  voted  to  re- 
quire of  their  successors  before  taking  office  a  declaration 
of  assent  to  the  Saybrook  Confession  of  faith  and  an  assur- 
ance of  opposition  to  "  prelatical  corruptions."  Cutler 
and  Brown  started  at  once  for  England  to  be  ordained,  and 
with  them  went  Samuel  Johnson,  one  of  the  Congregational 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  221 

divines.  Brown  died  of  smallpox,  the  besetting  plague  of 
ocean  travellers  at  that  time,  but  his  friends  returned.  Cutler 
to  Boston,  Johnson  to  Stratford  in  Connecticut.  That  was 
in  the  spring  of  1723. 

On  the  15th  of  April  in  that  year  was  laid  the  corner-stone 
of  Christ  Church,  Boston,  and  in  September  Dr.  Cutler 
became  the  first  rector  of  that  parish.  The  first  service  was 
said  in  the  completed  church  on  the  29th  of  December. 
The  building  remains  to  this  day,  in  excellent  condition, 
recently  restored,  the  oldest  house  of  worship  in  the  city. 
In  1735,  Trinity  Church  was  built  in  Boston  by  a  parish  so 
financially  substantial  as  to  need  no  aid  from  the  Venerable 
Society.  The  Rev.  Addington  Davenport  was  the  first  rec- 
tor. Peter  Faneuil  contributed  a  hundred  pounds  towards 
the  purchase  of  an  organ. 

Already,  in  1715,  St.  Michael's  Church  had  been  built  in 
Marblehead.  The  second  rector,  the  Rev.  David  Mosson, 
after  a  ministry  of  nine  years,  removed  to  Virginia,  where 
he  had  as  a  parishioner  George  Washington,  at  whose  mar- 
riage to  Mrs.  Custis  he  officiated. 

In  1 7 12,  the  Society  had  appointed  a  minister  to  take 
charge  of  a  congregation  in  Newbury  in  consequence  of  a 
serious  division  of  the  CongregationaHsts  concerning  the 
location  of  a  church  building.  This  building  having  been 
erected  on  Pipe-stem  Hill,  the  people  who  wanted  it  on  "  the 
plains  "  became  Episcopalians. 

Meanwhile,  the  Episcopalians  were  prospering  in  Con- 
necticut. It  was  after  the  Revolution  that  President  Ezra 
Stiles  of  Yale  noted  in  his  diary  a  list  of  some  twenty  dis- 
quieting signs  of  the  times  which,  he  said,  kept  him  awake 
at  night.  One  of  these  he  described  as  "  an  alarming  increase 
of  wickedness  and  episcopacy."  The  increase  of  episcopacy 
started  with  Johnson.  When  he  and  Brown  and  Cutler 
began  to  read  Church  of  England  theology  in  the  library  of 


222  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Yale  College,  there  was  not  an  Episcopal  minister  in  the 
colony.  When  Johnson  settled  in  Stratford  and  in  1724 
completed  the  building  of  a  church,  he  was  the  only  clergy- 
man of  his  order  in  that  part  of  the  country.  Then  came 
Henry  Caner,  of  the  class  of  1724,  whom  Johnson  instructed 
in  theology,  and  who  afterwards  became  rector  of  King's 
Chapel  in  Boston.  "  A  love  to  the  Church,"  wrote  Johnson, 
"  gains  ground  greatly  in  the  college.  Several  young  men 
that  are  graduates,  and  some  young  ministers,  are  very 
uneasy  out  of  the  communion  of  the  Church,  and  some  of 
them  seem  much  disposed  to  come  into  her  service."  Two 
of  these,  Pierson  and  Brown,  went  to  England  for  ordination. 
Samuel  Seabury,  whose  son  became  the  first  bishop  of  Con- 
necticut, came  in  from  the  Congregational  ministry.  So 
did  Beach  of  Watertown,  Punderson  of  Groton,  and  Bliss 
of  Hartford.  Within  twenty  years  from  the  beginning  of 
Johnson's  ministry  fourteen  churches  had  been  built.  Pun- 
derson became  the  first  rector  of  a  parish  in  New  Haven, 
and  built  a  wooden  church  on  the  site  still  occupied,  at  a 
time  when  it  was  said  that  the  door-sill  of  the  new  building 
was  wide  enough  "  to  furnish  seats  for  all  the  men  of  the 
Episcopal  families  in  the  town." 

In  1729,  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Rhode  Island,  and 
throughout  the  New  England  colonies,  was  reinforced  by 
a  visit  from  Dean  Berkeley. 

George  Berkeley,  dean  of  Derry  and  afterwards  bishop  of 
Cloyne,  was  already  a  philosopher  of  eminent  distinction. 
His  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  published  in  1709, 
had  begun  a  revolution  in  speculative  science.  He  had  pro- 
pounded his  characteristic  theory  that  nothing  exists  apart 
from  mind.  This  theory  had  not  prevented  him  from  form- 
ing a  conviction  of  the  incalculable  importance  of  the  Ameri- 
can colonies.  He  foresaw  for  these  settlements  a  vaster 
future  than  was  dreamed  of  by  any  of  his  countrymen.    He 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  223 

perceived  the  Star  of  Empire  moving  toward  the  West. 
Berkeley  was  so  attractive  a  person  that  Miss  Vanhomrigh, 
Dean  Swift's  friend,  bequeathed  him  half  her  property  after 
meeting  him  once  at  dinner.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  he  should  have  been  able  to  persuade  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole  to  look  with  favor  on  his  plan  to  found  a  college  in 
the  Bermudas  for  the  benefit  of  the  Americans.  Walpole 
promised  a  grant  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  to  endow  this 
institution,  but  suggested  that  Berkeley  would  be  more 
likely  to  get  it  if  he  went  to  America.  Eventually,  the 
promise  came  to  nothing,  but  Berkeley's  residence  here  for 
two  years  was  productive  of  great  good. 

Mr.  Honeyman  of  Newport  was  in  the  midst  of  his  sermon 
on  a  Sunday  morning  when  word  was  brought  him  that  the 
Dean  of  Derry  had  arrived,  and  he  came  down  from  the 
pulpit,  closed  the  service,  and  led  the  whole  congregation 
to  the  landing  to  meet  him.  Johnson  of  Stratford  came  to 
consult  him  concerning  the  charter  of  the  College  of  Phila- 
delphia, now  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  concern- 
ing the  charter  of  King's  College,  now  Columbia  University. 
Johnson  had  declined  the  presidency  of  the  former  of  these 
institutions,  to  which  he  was  nominated  by  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, and  had  accepted  the  presidency  of  the  latter.  Berkeley's 
ideas  directed  the  original  course  of  each  of  these  Episcopal 
foundations.  The  great  immediate  value  of  his  residence, 
however,  was  in  the  fact  that  the  Episcopal  Church  possessed 
in  him  a  representative  whose  intellectual  distinction  and 
saintly  character  every  Puritan  minister  in  the  country 
recognized. 

The  next  influential  churchman  to  visit  these  shores  was. 
George  Whitefield.     He  came  to  Boston  in  1740  in  the  time 
of  the  Great  Awakening. 

Jonathan  Edwards  in  Northampton  and  George  White- 
field  and  John  Wesley  in  London  had  discovered  a  new  way 


224  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  become  a  Christian.  They  had  each  of  them  entered  into 
a  new  consciousness  of  God  and  a  new  assurance  of  salvation 
through  a  psychological  experience.  Among  the  factors  of 
this  experience  were  an  awful  horror  of  hell,  a  profound  sense 
of  sin,  a  definite  perception  of  Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  their 
individual  soul,  and  a  resulting  spiritual  confidence  and  joy. 
They  began  to  lead  others  along  the  steps  of  this  experience. 
The  results  were  astonishing.  In  a  time  of  general  unbelief 
and  unusual  indifi'erence  to  religion  they  were  able  to  appeal 
effectively  to  the  conscience  of  thousands,  and  to  bring 
them  to  conviction.  The  fear  of  hell  which  they  aroused 
in  their  auditors  as  the  beginning  of  their  new  treatment  of 
souls,  and  the  certainty  of  heaven  with  which  the  treatment 
was  completed  gave  rise  to  scenes  of  extraordinary  emotion. 
Nothing  quite  like  it  had  ever  taken  place  among  such 
multitudes. 

By  a  natural  process  of  reasoning,  based  on  the  actual 
results  of  the  method,  the  preachers  of  the  new  way  were  led 
to  maintain  that  it  was  the  only  way.  Not  by  the  sacraments 
of  baptism  and  the  Holy  Communion,  not  by  Christian 
nurture  and  gradual  growth  in  grace,  not  by  the  li\ang  of  a 
holy  life,  were  people  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but 
of  a  sudden,  with  great  violence,  through  a  passionate  emo- 
tional experience.  And  presently  the  leaders  did  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  nobody  was  a  Christian,  no  matter  how  good,  — 
no  Episcopal  clergyman  with  his  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
no  Puritan  minister  with  his  orthodox  theology  and  his 
austere  righteousness  of  life  —  nobody  was  a  Christian 
unless  he  had  passed  through  this  experience  of  definite 
conversion. 

Whitefield  came  preaching  this  new  doctrine.  He  was 
an  ordained  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  but  his 
churchmanship  was  of  a  piece  with  that  of  the  Puritans  of 
the  early  colonization  of  Massachusetts  who  considered  the 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  225 

liturgy  and  episcopacy  as  of  no  importance.  It  made  no 
difference  to  Whitefield  where  he  preached,  whether  in  an 
Episcopal  church  or  in  a  Congregational  meeting-house,  or 
on  Boston  Common.  All  ministers  looked  alike  to  him, 
whether  they  wore  surplices  or  Geneva  gowns.  Indeed,  he 
included  them  all  alike  under  the  condemnation  of  being 
Httle  better  than  the  heathen  unless  they  had  been  con- 
verted. 

Dr.  Colman  of  the  Brattle  Street  Church  invited  White- 
field  to  Boston.  Dr.  Cutler,  meeting  him  in  the  street,  said 
to  him  frankly,  "  I  am  sorry  to  see  you  here  ";  to  which 
Whitefield  replied,  "  So  is  the  devil."  He  visited  Ipswich, 
Marblehead,  Salem,  Newburyport,  and  Portsmouth,  preach- 
ing everywhere  to  vast  multitudes.  In  Cambridge  he  spoke 
at  the  college:  "  scarce  as  big,"  he  said,  "  as  one  of  our  least 
colleges  at  Oxford  "  and  "  not  superior  in  piety."  He  found 
the  tutors  and  students  reading  "  bad  books  ";  meaning,  as 
the  context  shows,  the  theological  works  of  Archbishop 
Tillotson.  "  Boston,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  is  a  large 
populous  place,  and  very  wealthy.  It  has  kept  the  form  up 
very  well,  but  has  lost  much  of  the  power  of  religion." 
"  The  pride  of  life,"  he  said,  "is  to  be  seen  in  their  assem- 
blies. Jewels,  patches,  and  gay  apparel  are  commonly 
worn  by  the  female  sex.  I  observed  little  boys  and  girls 
commonly  dressed  up  in  the  pride  of  life,  and  the  infants 
that  were  brought  to  baptism  were  wrapped  up  in  such  finery 
that  one  would  think  they  were  brought  thither  to  be  initi- 
ated into,  rather  than  to  renounce,  the  pomps  and  vanities 
of  this  wicked  world." 

Dr.  Cutler  described  Whitefield's  visit,  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend : 

Whitefield  has  plagued  us  with  a  witness.  It  would  be  an  endless 
attempt  to  describe  the  scene  of  confusion  and  disturbance  occasioned 
by  him;  the  divisions  of  families,  neighborhoods  and  towns;  the  con- 


226  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

trariety  of  husbands  and  wives;  the  imdutifulness  of  children  and  serv- 
ants; the  quarrels  among  the  teachers;  the  disorders  of  the  night; 
the  intermission  of  labour  and  business;  the  neglect  of  husbandry 
and  the  gathering  of  the  harvest.  ...  In  many  communities  several 
preaching,  and  several  exhorting  or  praying,  at  the  same  time,  the 
rest  crying,  or  laughing,  yelping,  sprawling  or  fainting.  This  revel 
in  some  places  has  been  maintained  many  days  and  nights  together. 

When  Mr.  Whitefield  first  arrived  here,  the  whole  town  was  alarmed. 
He  made  his  first  visit  to  church  on  a  Friday,  and  canvassed  with 
many  of  our  clergy  together,  and  belied  them,  me  especially,  when  he 
had  gone.  Being  not  invited  into  our  pulpits,  the  Dissenters  were 
highly  pleased,  and  engrossed  him;  and  immediately  bells  rang,  and 
all  hands  went  to  lecture.  This  show  kept  on  all  the  while  he  was  here. 
The  town  was  ever  alarmed;  the  streets  were  filled  with  people  with 
coaches  and  chairs,  all  for  the  benefit  of  that  holy  man.  The  con- 
venticles were  crowded;  but  he  rather  chose  the  Common,  where 
multitudes  might  see  him  in  all  his  awful  postures;  besides,  in  one 
crowded  conventicle,  six  were  killed  in  a  fight  before  he  came  in ;  but 
he  ever  anathematized  the  Church  of  England,  and  that  was  enough. 

After  him  came  one  Tennant,  a  monster,  impudent  and  noisy,  and 
told  them  they  were  all  Damned !  damned !  damned  !  This  charmed 
them,  and,  in  the  most  dreadful  winter  I  ever  saw,  people  wallowed 
in  the  snow,  night  and  day,  for  the  benefit  of  his  beastly  brayings. 

That  this  description  was  not  due  to  prelatical  prejudices 
appears  from  a  hke  account  given  by  Dr.  Chauncy  of  the 
First  Church.  He  says  that  Whitefield  spoke  in  every 
sermon  about  the  unconverted  ministers,  calling  them  carnal, 
unregenerate  wretches,  and  enemies  of  Christ,  the  worst 
He  had.  The  people,  he  adds,  were  praying,  screaming, 
singing,  and  jumping  up  and  down,  "  the  whole  with  a  very 
great  noise  to  be  heard  at  a  mile's  distance." 

The  efTect  of  the  Great  Awakening  upon  the  Episcopal 
Church  was,  in  part,  to  set  a  further  separation  between 
the  Episcopalians  and  their  pious  neighbors.  The  church- 
men held  aloof  from  the  revival  meetings,  and  were  thought 
to  have  no  vital  piety.  At  the  same  time  the  sobriety  of  the 
Episcopal  services,  and  the  quietness  and  general  sanity  of 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  227 

the  Episcopal  system,  attracted  into  the  church  considerable 
numbers  of  persons  whom  the  methods  of  the  revival 
preachers  had  repelled.  They  were  of  the  mind  of  the  man 
on  whose  tombstone  in  the  Copps  Hill  burying-ground  is  the 
inscription:  "  He  was  an  enemy  to  enthusiasm,"  —  meaning 
by  "  enthusiasm  "  the  unrestrained  emotion  and  the  dis- 
orderly behaviour  of  the  disciples  of  Whitefield. 

Then  the  political  situation  grew  every  year  more  tense, 
and  here  again  the  Episcopalians  were  on  the  unpopular 
side.  Not  all  of  them  —  Washington  was  a  churchman,  — 
but  a  good  many  of  them,  especially  among  the  clergy. 
The  Church  of  England  was  their  mother  church;  they 
prayed  regularly  for  the  King.  The  representatives  of  the 
English  government  were  most  of  them  churchmen.  So 
were  many  of  the  landed  proprietors,  owners  of  fine  houses, 
as  in  Cambridge,  on  Brattle  Street,  called  Tory  Row,  or 
Church  Row,  the  adjectives  being  considered  synonymous. 
The  plain  people  in  the  pleasant  parishes  were  quite  as  likely 
as  their  Puritan  neighbors  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the 
patriots,  but  the  wardens  and  their  families,  and  the  clergy, 
linked  to  England  by  a  thousand  ties  of  association  and 
relationship  and  affection,  were  likely  to  be  royalists.  On  the 
1 8th  of  April,  1775,  it  was  the  sexton  of  Christ  Church  who 
hung  the  lanterns  in  the  tower  to  direct  the  midnight  ride 
of  Paul  Revere.  On  that  very  day  the  rector,  the  Rev. 
Mather  Byles,  Jr.,  handed  in  his  resignation. 

II.  AFTER  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

The  benefactions  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  had  been  a  great  help,  but  also  a  serious  hindrance, 
to  the  Episcopal  churches  of  New  England.  The  Society  was 
most  generous,  and  by  its  assistance  buildings  were  erected 
and  salaries  were  paid,  but  the  effect  was  to  provide  the 


228  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

parishes  with  ministers  who  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
and  educated  in  England,  and  who  were  dependent  for  their 
living  upon  the  EngHsh  church.  In  Connecticut,  owing 
to  accessions  from  the  CongregationaKsts,  there  was  a  con- 
siderable number  of  native  clergymen,  but  elsewhere  the 
conditions  were  such  as  to  connect  the  Episcopal  clergy  with 
England  in  bonds  both  of  dependence  and  of  affection  such 
as  did  not  exist  in  any  other  communion.  The  liturgy  wdth 
its  prayers  for  the  King  laid  a  further  burden  on  the  Episco- 
pal conscience. 

The  result  was  that  the  American  Revolution,  which 
affected  all  the  churches,  brought  the  Episcopal  Church  to 
the  very  edge  of  extinction. 

When  the  war  was  over  only  two  parishes  survived  in 
Maine,  one  at  Gardiner  and  the  other  at  Portland,  and 
neither  of  them  had  a  minister. 

In  New  Hampshire  there  were  two  parishes,  one  at  Ports- 
mouth, the  other  at  Claremont.  The  Portsmouth  parish 
had  had  for  its  rector  the  Rev.  Arthur  Browne,  who  appeared 
at  the  marriage  of  Lady  Wentworth  in  the  Tales  oj  a  Way- 
side Inn.  The  Claremont  parish  had  been  organized  by  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Peters,  whose  General  History  of  Connecticut 
contained  the  famous  spurious  collection  of  forty-five  Puri- 
tan regulations,  known  as  the  "  Blue  Laws."  In  1775,  the 
rector,  the  Rev.  Ranna  Cossit,  wrote  to  the  Society:  "  I  have 
constantly  kept  up  public  services,  without  any  omissions 
for  the  King  and  royal  family  and  likewise  made  use  of  the 
prayers  for  the  High  Court  of  Parliament  and  the  prayers 
used  in  time  of  war  and  tumults.  The  number  of  my  parish- 
ioners and  communicants  in  Claremont  are  increased,  but 
I  have  been  cruelly  distressed  with  fines  for  refusing  entirely 
to  fight  against  the  King.  In  sundry  places  where  I  used  to 
officiate  the  church  are  all  dwindled  away.  Some  have  fled 
to  the  King's  army  for  protection,  some  are  banished  and 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  229 

many  are  dead."  He  added,  "  I  have  been  by  the  committee 
confined  as  prisoner  in  the  town  of  Claremont  since  the  12th 
of  April,  1775;  yet  God  has  preserved  my  life  from  the  rage 
of  the  people."  That  was  in  1779.  In  1794  a  meeting  of  the 
parish  was  held  to  "  see  upon  what  terms  they  will  join  the 
Congregational  people  in  hiring  Mr.  Whiting."  Mr.  Whiting 
was  "  to  officiate  alternately  at  the  church  and  at  the  meeting- 
house." But  this  endeavor  after  Christian  unity  the  Con- 
gregational people  declined. 

In  Rhode  Island  there  were  four  parishes,  —  Trinity,  New- 
port, St.  Paul's,  Kingston  (the  "  Narragansett  Church  "), 
St.  Michael's,  Bristol,  and  St.  John's,  Providence.  The 
Bristol  church  was  burned  by  British  soldiers.  The  rector 
of  the  Providence  church,  in  July,  1776,  "was  pleased  to 
absent  himself  from  duty,  though  very  earnestly  requested 
to  keep  up  the  worship,  saying  he  could  not,  as  prayers  for 
King  George  were  forbidden." 

In  Massachusetts  there  were  fourteen  parishes.  But  Dr. 
Caner  of  King's  Chapel,  on  the  occasion  of  the  evacuation 
of  Boston  by  the  British  in  1776,  had  fled  to  Nova  Scotia, 
in  company  with  a  considerable  part  of  his  congregation. 
He  left  a  memorandum  stating  that  "  an  unnatural  rebellion 
of  the  colonies  against  his  majesty's  government  obliged 
the  loyal  part  of  his  subjects  to  evacuate  their  dwellings  and 
substance,  and  take  refuge  in  Halifax,  London,  and  else- 
where. By  which  means  the  public  worship  at  King's 
Chapel  became  suspended  and  is  likely  to  remain  so  until 
it  shall  please  God  in  the  course  of  his  Providence,  to  change 
the  hearts  of  the  rebels,  or  give  success  to  his  majesty's  arms 
for  suppressing  the  rebellion." 

In  the  minute-book  of  the  vestry  of  Christ  Church,  Boston, 
there  are  two  blank  pages  between  the  6th  of  September, 
1774,  and  the  31st  of  March,  1779.  On  the  second  date  the 
rector  was  desired  to  prepare  a  proper  form  of  prayer  for 


230  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Congress,  for  the  several  states,  and  for  their  "success  in  the 
present  important  contest,"  to  be  used  daily  in  the  church. 

Such  prayers  had  been  used  in  Trinity  Church,  by  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Parker,  during  the  Revolution,  and  the  parish  had 
been  maintained  in  consequence. 

The  Rev.  East  Apthorp  had  left  the  pleasant  house  which 
he  had  built  for  his  residence  in  Cambridge,  which  his  Puri- 
tan neighbors  called  in  derision  the  "  bishop's  palace,"  and 
had  gone  to  England.  Christ  Church,  used  for  barracks  by 
the  Revolutionary  soldiers,  had  been  cleared  for  divine  service, 
at  the  request  of  Mrs.  Washington,  on  the  last  day  of  1775, 
but  thereafter,  until  1790,  stood  empty,  open  to  the  weather. 
Only  five  clergymen  were  found  in  Massachusetts  in  1787 
to  sign  a  protest  against  the  ordination  of  James  Freeman. 

In  Connecticut,  when  the  Revolution  began,  there  were 
twenty  Episcopal  clergymen  and  forty  parishes.  At  the 
end  of  the  war  there  were  fourteen  clergymen  remaining, 
but  in  the  midst  of  diminished  parishes,  and  subject  to  the 
suspicion  and  the  ill-will  of  their  patriotic  neighbors.  The 
church  in  Fairfield  had  been  destroyed  when  General  Tryon 
burned  the  town.  The  church  in  New  London  had  suffered 
a  like  fate  at  the  hands  of  Benedict  Arnold.  The  church  in 
Norwalk  lay  in  ashes.  Other  church  buildings  had  been 
plundered  and  defaced,  some  by  British  soldiers,  some  by 
patriots.  Of  the  clergy,  some  had  fled,  some  had  been  im- 
prisoned, some  had  been  mobbed.  Mr.  Graves  of  Norwich, 
persisting  in  praying  for  the  King,  had  been  "  brought  ex- 
peditiously to  the  level  of  the  floor."  Mr.  Beach  in  the  course 
of  a  bold  sermon  against  rebellion  had  been  fired  at  by  an 
aggrieved  parishioner;  the  mark  of  the  bullet  is  still  to  be 
seen  in  the  sounding-board  of  the  church  at  Redding. 

Under  these  hard  conditions  the  Episcopalians  of  New 
England  gathered  themselves  together  when  the  storm  of 
war  was  past.     They  were  a  feeble  folk,  few  in  number. 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  23 1 

deprived  of  the  financial  assistance  on  which  they  had  de- 
pended, and  under  suspicion  both  in  rehgion  and  in  poHtics. 
They  were  commonly  considered  to  have  neither  piety  nor 
patriotism;  having  held  aloof  both  from  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing and  from  the  Revolution.  They  were  held  to  be  the 
votaries  of  a  foreign  rehgion,  which  was  identified  in  the 
general  mind  with  aristocracy,  and  monarchy,  and  tyranny, 
and  with  malignant  opposition  to  the  freedom  of  the  colonies. 
At  a  time  when  almost  everybody  hated  England,  these 
brethren  belonged  to  the  Church  of  England. 

And  they  had  no  leader.  More  serious  than  the  distrust 
and  enmity  of  their  neighbors  was  this  radical  weakness. 
In  a  church  called  Episcopal  because  it  is  administered  by 
bishops,  they  were  without  a  bishop. 

This  lack  had  long  been  felt.  In  the  Southern  colonies  the 
church  had  been  discredited  by  unworthy  ministers  over 
whom  there  was  no  ofl&cial  supervision.  In  New  England, 
the  Society  had  exercised  an  authority  which  had  prevented 
such  a  situation;  but,  even  so,  every  candidate  for  holy 
orders  was  obliged  to  go  to  England  for  his  ordination.  The 
journey  was  not  only  long  and  expensive  but  dangerous. 
Passengers  across  the  ocean  were  in  peril  of  smallpox  from 
within  and  of  pirates  from  without.  Johnson  wrote  to  the 
Bishop  of  London  "  that  a  considerable  number  of  young 
gentlemen,  of  the  best  educated  among  us,  for  want  of 
Episcopal  ordination,  decline  the  ministry,  unwilling  to 
expose  themselves  to  the  dangers  of  the  sea  and  distempers; 
so  that  the  fountain  of  all  our  misery  is  the  want  of  a  bishop, 
for  whom  there  are  many  thousands  of  souls  in  this  country 
who  impatiently  long  and  pray." 

This  appeal,  with  many  others  like  it,  was  met  in  England 
with  indifference,  and  in  this  country,  especially  in  New 
England,  with  hostihty.  In  England,  the  American  planta- 
tions seemed  exceedingly  remote  and  of  small  importance 


232  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  the  minds  both  of  statesmen  and  of  churchmen  were 
occupied  with  imperative  problems  at  home.  In  New  Eng- 
land the  bishops  were  thought  of  not  as  spiritual  but  as 
political  persons,  agents  of  oppression,  enemies  of  liberty, 
successors  of  Archbishop  Laud.  John  Adams,  considering 
the  matter  with  an  unprejudiced  mind,  said  that  "  the  ob- 
jection was  not  only  to  the  office  of  a  bishop,  though  that 
was  dreaded,  but  to  the  authority  of  Parliament,  on  which 
it  must  be  founded.  The  reasoning,"  he  said,  "was  this: 
There  is  no  power  less  than  Parliament  which  can  create 
bishops  in  America.  But  if  Parliament  can  erect  dioceses 
and  create  bishops,  they  may  introduce  the  whole  hierarchy, 
estabUsh  titles,  estabhsh  religion,  forbid  dissenters,  make 
schism  heresy,  impose  penalties  extending  to  life  and  hmb 
as  well  as  to  liberty  and  property."  A  cartoon,  perhaps  in 
caricature  of  the  seal  of  the  Society,  represented  a  bishop 
in  the  prow  of  a  ship,  pelted  with  books  and  other  missiles 
by  angry  colonists  on  the  shore,  and  crying,  "  Lord,  now 
lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace."  The  protesting 
mob  are  caUing  out,  "  No  Lords,  spiritual  or  temporal,  in 
New  England  !  " 

This  opposition  was  found  even  among  churchmen.  As 
late  as  1785,  the  clergy  and  laity  of  South  Carohna  agreed 
to  meet  in  convention  with  their  brethren  of  the  other  states 
only  on  condition  that  they  should  never  be  compelled  to 
have  a  bishop.  The  idea  of  a  missionary  bishop  had  no  place 
in  the  general  mind.  Almost  everybody  pictured  a  bishop 
as  a  prelatical  and  domineering  person  having  his  residence 
in  an  Episcopal  palace,  from  which  he  emerged  only  to  go 
about  in  a  coach  drawn  by  four  horses.  It  was  felt  that  there 
were  few  roads  in  America  convenient  for  a  coach-and-four. 

When,  however,  the  successful  Revolution  effected  the 
complete  political  independence  of  the  colonies,  the  situation 
was  greatly  changed.    The  Congregationalists  and  Presby- 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  233 

terians,  while  they  still  disapproved  of  bishops,  were  not 
now  afraid  of  them.  Accordingly,  in  March,  1783,  when  the 
independence  of  the  United  States  had  become  an  accom- 
phshed  fact,  though  before  the  formal  proclamation  of  peace, 
ten  of  the  fourteen  clergy  of  Connecticut  met  at  the  rectory 
of  St.  Paul's  Church  in  Woodbury  and  elected  a  man  to  go 
to  England  to  seek  Episcopal  consecration. 

Samuel  Seabury  who  was  chosen  for  this  difficult  mission 
was  the  son  of  a  Congregational  minister  who  had  entered 
the  Episcopal  Church.  He  had  graduated  at  Yale  in  the 
class  of  1748,  had  studied  both  medicine  and  theology,  and 
in  1753  had  been  ordained  in  England.  During  his  rector- 
ship of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Westchester,  N.  Y.,  from  1766 
to  1775,  he  had  taken  the  royalist  side  in  the  pohtical  con- 
troversies of  the  day,  and  was  beheved  to  be  the  author  of 
the  anonymous  "  Westchester  Farmer's  Letters  "  in  debate 
with  Alexander  Hamilton  concerning  the  proceedings  of  the 
Continental  Congress.  A  mob  of  Whigs  had  seized  upon 
him;  he  had  been  for  six  weeks  in  prison  in  Connecticut; 
he  had  fled  for  safety  to  the  King's  army  in  New  York  where 
he  was  made  chaplain  to  a  regiment.  In  selecting  so  pro- 
nounced and  unrepentant  a  Royalist  the  Connecticut  clergy 
apparently  had  regard  to  the  minds  of  the  Enghsh  bishops 
rather  than  to  the  sentiments  of  patriotic  Americans. 

The  English  bishops,  however,  found  themselves  unable 
to  grant  Seabury's  request.  He  could  not,  under  the  politi- 
cal circumstances,  take  the  customary  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  King;  and  they  could  not,  without  an  act  of  Parliament, 
dispense  him  from  it;  and  Parliament  was  unwilling  to  act, 
being  doubtful  of  the  effect  upon  the  American  people  with 
whom  they  were  concluding  a  treaty  of  peace.  Then  Sea- 
bury  turned  from  the  English  bishops  to  the  Scotch. 

The  Scotch  bishops  were  under  no  obligations  to  Parlia- 
ment.   Their  predecessors,  in  1688,  had  refused  to  change 


234  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

their  allegiance  from  James  to  William,  and  thereafter  had 
actively  interested  themselves  in  various  plots  to  bring  back 
the  House  of  Stuart.  They  had  therefore  been  disestab- 
lished, their  churches  had  been  destroyed,  and  a  law  was 
still  on  the  statute  books  forbidding  more  than  five  of  their 
adherents  to  meet  together  for  the  services  of  religion.  The 
church  in  Scotland  was  divided  between  the  clergy  who  had 
been  ordained  by  English  bishops,  and  the  clergy  who  had 
been  ordained  by  the  Scotch  bishops.  The  Scotch  bishops 
were  in  proper  standing  ecclesiastically,  but  they  had  no 
standing  whatever  politically.  The  old  rigor  of  party  hatred 
had  been  much  diminished  by  the  lapse  of  years  of  peace, 
but  the  Scotch  bishops  had  their  own  prayer  book,  some- 
what different  from  the  English,  and  were  traditionally, 
though  no  longer  actively,  regarded  as  rebels.  They  were 
able  to  sympathize  with  a  rebel  from  America.  The  fact 
that  Seabury  was  in  the  curious  position  of  being  a  rebel 
and  a  royalist  at  the  same  time  commended  him  still  further 
to  their  confidence.  For  they  themselves  were  in  a  like 
position. 

The  appeal  of  Seabury  to  the  Scotch  bishops  was  accord- 
ingly successful.  In  1784,  in  Aberdeen,  Kilgour  and  Skinner 
of  that  diocese,  and  Petrie  of  Ross  and  Moray,  laid  their 
hands  upon  his  head.  Skinner  in  his  sermon  gave  some 
offence  by  remarking  that  the  Scotch  bishops  paid  more 
heed  to  the  acts  of  the  Apostles  than  to  acts  of  Parliament. 
Seabury,  who  preached  in  the  afternoon,  somewhat  startled 
the  congregation  by  his  freedom  of  gesture  and  volume  of 
voice.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  service  was  rather  more 
satisfactory  than  that  which  was  held  three  years  later  when, 
in  the  chapel  of  Lambeth  Palace,  the  archbishops  of  Canter- 
bury and  York,  with  others,  consecrated  William  White 
bishop  for  Pennsylvania,  and  Samuel  Provoost  bishop  for 
New  York.     The  congregation  was  very  small,  consisting 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  235 

mainly  of  Canterbury's  household,  and  the  sermon,  preached 
by  a  chaplain,  "  had  very  little  reference  to  the  particularity 
of  the  occasion." 

Seabury,  when  he  returned,  brought  with  him  the  com- 
munion office  of  the  church  in  Scotland,  which  he  had  prom- 
ised to  introduce  so  far  as  he  was  able  into  the  church  in 
America.  In  1785,  he  met  the  clergy  of  his  diocese,  and 
ordained  four  men  to  the  diaconate.  Thus,  at  last,  there 
was  a  bishop  in  these  parts. 

Unhappily,  the  satisfaction  of  New  England  in  this  accom- 
pHshment  was  not  shared  by  the  Episcopalians  of  the  other 
states.  They  looked  askance  both  at  the  Scotch  bishops  as 
persons  out  of  favor  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  at 
Seabury,  who  as  a  royahst  would  probably  be  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  patriots  of  America.  It  seemed  to  them  that 
the  ten  parsons  of  Connecticut  who  had  thus  proceeded  to 
get  a  bishop  had  made  a  bad  beginning  and  had  acted 
prematurely  and  presumptuously.  In  the  confused  state  of 
public  opinion,  while  the  colonies  as  separate  and  sovereign 
commonwealths  were  considering  with  some  hesitation 
whether  to  unite  in  a  single  nation,  or  not,  it  was  possible 
for  the  moment  that  New  England  might  be  left  to  have 
its  own  Episcopal  Church  independent  of  its  neighbors. 
During  Seabury's  absence  a  general  convention  had  been 
called  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  in  September,  1785,  but  so 
strong  was  the  feeling  against  the  action  of  Connecticut 
and  so  uncertain  was  the  bishop  as  to  the  reception  which 
might  be  given  him,  that  he  stayed  away,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  New  England  with  him.  The  convention 
proposed  a  constitution  which  should  unite  the  churchmen 
of  all  the  states  in  one  ecclesiastical  communion,  voted  an 
address  to  the  archbishop  and  bishops  of  the  Church  of 
England  asking  for  the  Episcopal  succession  at  their  hands, 
and  at  an  adjourned  meeting,  in  1786,  received  a  reply  which 


236  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

enclosed  an  act  of  Parliament  authorizing  the  consecration 
of  bishops  for  America.  This  happy  state  of  things  had  been 
much  assisted  by  the  American  minister  at  the  court  of  St. 
James,  John  Adams  of  Massachusetts,  who  with  his  own 
hand  had  presented  the  address  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, with  satisfactory  explanations  and  commendations. 

In  1789,  White  and  Provoost  having  been  made  bishops 
in  England,  the  general  convention  met  again  in  Philadelphia. 
They  formally  invited  Bishop  Seabury,  expressing  by  reso- 
lution their  confidence  in  the  validity  of  his  consecration, 
and  Seabury  accepted  the  invitation.  In  the  absence  of 
Provoost,  who  refused  to  attend  if  Seabury  was  to  be  there, 
the  House  of  Bishops  consisted  of  Seabury  and  White.  Peace 
and  fraternity  prevailed.  The  constitution  which  united 
the  Episcopal  churches,  and  which  still  governs  their  legis- 
lative action,  was  signed  on  the  second  of  October,  in  the 
same  room  in  the  State  House  in  which  Congress  had  signed 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  two  documents,  belonging  to  the  same  time  and 
place,  and  dealing  with  like  conditions,  contain  interesting 
resemblances.  In  the  political  paper  colonies  which  had 
now  become  states,  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  paper  colonies 
which  had  now  become  dioceses,  were  brought  together  on 
the  basis  of  a  written  constitution.  Provision  was  made 
both  in  the  state  and  in  the  church  for  representative 
government.  Corresponding  to  the  Federal  Congress  was 
the  General  Convention,  each  made  up  of  two  houses, 
bishops  answering  to  senators  and  deputies  to  representatives. 
The  church  did  not  venture  quite  so  far  as  the  state  in  the 
direction  of  monarchy.  It  made  no  provision  for  the  presi- 
dent or  general  executive  officer,  but  only  for  a  presiding 
bishop,  holding  office  by  virtue  of  seniority,  having  no  very 
important  duties,  and  carefully  prevented  from  reminding 
anybody  of  Archbishop  Laud. 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  237 

An  important  matter  which  had  already  engaged  the  at- 
tention of  Bishop  Seabury  was  the  case  of  King's  Chapel 
in  Boston.  The  rector  and  many  influential  members  of 
the  congregation  having  left  the  town,  the  Congregationalists 
of  the  Old  South  Meeting-house  moved  into  the  Chapel 
while  their  own  place  of  worship  was  being  put  in  order  after 
its  occupation  by  British  soldiers  as  a  riding-school.  The 
Old  South  people  used  the  church  one-half  of  the  day,  and 
the  King's  Chapel  people  the  other  half.  The  vacant  pews 
were  sold  to  new  proprietors.  The  wardens  invited  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Parker  of  Trinity  Church  to  come  over  with  his 
congregation  and  occupy  the  chapel,  but  the  invitation  was 
declined.  They  then  appointed  Mr.  James  Freeman  to 
officiate  as  lay  reader.  And  Mr.  Freeman  presently  apphed 
to  Bishop  Seabury  for  ordination. 

The  political  situation  at  that  time  was  reflected  in  the 
current  theology.  Along  with  the  revolt  against  the  tra- 
ditional forms  of  government  there  was  a  widespread  dis- 
content with  the  traditional  orthodoxy  in  religion.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  subjected  to  serious  criticism. 
A  tentative  revision  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  under- 
taken by  the  General  Convention  of  1785,  proposed  to  omit 
not  only  the  prayers  for  the  royal  family  but  both  the 
Athanasian  and  the  Nicene  creeds;  and,  although  the  Nicene 
Creed  was  eventually  retained,  the  fact  that  the  proposal 
to  remove  it  commended  itself  at  the  moment  to  representa- 
tives of  the  church  is  indicative  of  their  state  of  mind. 
Dr.  Provoost,  three  days  before  his  election  to  be  bishop 
of  New  York,  wrote  to  Dr.  White,  just  elected  to  be 
bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  "  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has 
been  a  bone  of  contention  since  the  first  ages  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  will  be  to  the  end  of  the  world.  It  is  an 
abstruse  point,  upon  which  great  charity  is  due  to  differ- 
ent opinions,  and  the  only  way  of  securing  ourselves  from 


238  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

error  is  to  adhere  to  Scriptural  expressions,  without  turn- 
ing into  definitions." 

The  mind  of  Mr.  Freeman  was  sympathetic  with  the  cur- 
rent desire  to  state  the  doctrines  of  rehgion  in  their  simplest 
terms,  and  to  free  the  church  from  the  metaphysics  of  the- 
ology and  the  entanglements  of  doctrinal  debate.  In  1783, 
being  chosen  rector  of  King's  Chapel,  he  revised  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  for  the  use  of  his  own  congregation. 
Every  rector  at  that  time  was  revising  the  Prayer  Book, 
more  or  less,  in  the  absence  of  any  general  authoritative 
action.  Freeman  only  went  somewhat  further  than  the 
others.  He  went  so  far,  however,  as  to  alarm  Seabury,  who 
on  his  return  as  bishop  in  1785,  declined  to  ordain  him. 
When  Provoost  returned  as  bishop  in  April,  1787,  Freeman 
brought  his  case  to  him.  But  even  Provoost  hesitated  to 
give  him  ordination,  and  suggested  a  reference  of  the  matter 
to  the  General  Convention.  Freeman,  however,  waited  no 
longer.  In  November,  1787,  he  was  ordained  "  rector, 
minister,  priest,  pastor,  teaching  elder  and  public  teacher  " 
by  his  senior  warden,  acting  for  the  congregation. 

"  Then,"  said  Dr.  Jeremy  Belknap  of  the  Federal  Street 
Church,  "  there  was  cut  the  aspiring  comb  of  prelatical 
pride,  —  then  was  undermined  the  pompous  fabric  of  hier- 
archical usurpation,  —  then  was  pricked  the  puffed  bladder 
of  uninterrupted  succession ;  while  the  eye  of  liberty  sparkled 
with  joy,  and  the  modest  face  of  primitive,  simple,  unadul- 
terated Christianity  brightened  with  the  conscious  smile  of 
a  decent,  manly,  substantial  triumph."  The  smile  was  too 
conscious  to  be  altogether  agreeable. 

The  neighboring  Episcopal  ministers  protested.  "  Where- 
as," they  said,  "  a  certain  congregation  in  Boston,  calling 
themselves  the  first  Episcopal  Church  in  said  town,  have, 
in  an  irregular  and  unconstitutional  manner,  introduced  a 
liturgy  essentially  different  from  any  used  in  the  Episcopal 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  239 

churches  in  this  Commonwealth,  and  in  the  United  States, 
not  to  mention  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church  in  general, 
and  have  also  assumed  to  themselves  a  power,  unprece- 
dented in  said  church,  of  separating  to  the  work  of  the  min- 
istry, Mr.  James  Freeman,  who  has  for  some  time  past  been 
their  Reader,  and  of  themselves  have  authorized,  or  pre- 
tendedly  authorized,  him  to  administer  the  sacraments  of 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper;  and  at  the  same  time  most 
inconsistently  and  absurdly  take  to  themselves  the  name 
and  style  of  an  Episcopal  church,  we,  the  ministers  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  whose  names  are  under 
written,  do  hereby  declare  the  proceedings  of  said  congre- 
gation, usually  meeting  at  the  Stone  Chapel  in  Boston  [as 
the  building  was  then  called]  to  be  irregular,  unconstitu- 
tional, diametrically  opposite  to  every  principle  adopted 
in  any  Episcopal  Church;  subversive  of  all  order  and  regu- 
larity, and  pregnant  with  consequences  fatal  to  the  interest 
of  religion." 

The  first  name  signed  to  this  vigorous  but  ineffectual 
protest  was  that  of  Edward  Bass,  rector  of  St.  Paul's  Church, 
Newburyport.  Bass  was  a  descendant  of  John  Alden  and 
Priscilla  Mullens,  and  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College  in  the 
class  of  1744.  He  took  his  master's  degree  in  1747,  when  in 
his  thesis  he  answered  in  the  affirmative  the  question,  "  Will 
the  blessed  in  the  future  world,  after  the  last  Judgment, 
make  use  of  articulate  speech,  and  will  that  be  Hebrew  ?  " 
Bass  entered  the  Congregational  ministry,  but  soon  after 
followed  the  example  of  some  of  his  brethren  and  sought 
episcopal  ordination,  going  to  London  for  that  purpose. 
Becoming  rector  at  Newburyport  he  had  continued  in  his 
parish  and  maintained  the  services  of  the  church  throughout 
the  Revolution.  He  had  omitted  the  state  prayer,  and  had 
devoted  himself  to  spiritual  rather  than  poHtical  duties. 
"  Temperate  and  uniform  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 


240  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

his  mission,"  said  his  wardens,  "  his  conduct  has  been  such 
as  could  give  just  cause  of  offence  to  no  party."  Even  so, 
he  did  not  escape  being  "  pursued  along  the  street  by  near 
two  hundred  persons  who  pelted  him  with  dirt  and  stones 
and  treated  him  with  the  most  indehcate  language." 

When  the  war  was  over,  Bass  with  his  spirit  of  moderation 
and  his  discretion  in  counsel  was  the  leading  Episcopal 
minister  in  New  England,  outside  of  Connecticut,  with  the 
exception  of  Parker  of  Trinity.  Parker  was  the  natural  per- 
son to  be  made  bishop,  but  he  dechned.  Bass  was  accordingly 
elected  to  that  office,  and  was  consecrated  in  Philadelphia 
in  1797,  being  the  first  bishop  consecrated  in  America. 
After  a  useful  but  uneventful  episcopate  of  six  years,  he 
died  and  was  succeeded  by  Samuel  Parker,  who,  however, 
died  only  a  few  weeks  after  assuming  office.  The  next  bishop, 
after  a  space  of  six  years,  was  Alexander  Viets  Griswold. 

When  Mr.  John  De  Wolfe  of  Bristol,  in  1804,  went  to  Har- 
rinton  in  Connecticut,  to  fetch  back  the  Rev.  Mr.  Griswold 
to  be  the  new  rector  of  the  Bristol  parish,  he  found  the  parson 
at  the  plow,  "  under  a  broad-brinrnaed  hat,  in  patched  short 
clothes,  coarse  stockings  and  heavy  shoes."  Griswold  had 
been  brought  up  on  a  farm,  where,  however,  in  the  evenings 
by  the  light  of  a  pine  knot  he  had  read  through  the  entire 
library  of  the  Rev.  Roger  Viets,  his  uncle.  No  man  understood 
better  the  life  and  disposition  of  the  plain  people.  There 
was  nothing  prelatical  about  him.  Seabury,  upon  occasion, 
had  worn  a  mitre,  intending  thereby  to  offend  his  neighbors 
the  Congregational  parsons,  who  had  been  heard  to  say  that 
they  were  as  much  bishops  as  he  was :  he  would  show  them 
what  a  real  bishop  looked  like.  But  a  mitre  upon  Griswold 
was  as  unimaginable  as  a  royal  crown  upon  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Wherever  he  went  he  dispelled  a  cloud  of  Puritan 
prejudices.  The  Puritans  were  even  free  to  confess  that 
Griswold  had  some  measure  of  vital  piety.    Shortly  after 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  24I 

his  election  to  the  episcopate  there  was  a  revival  of  religion 
in  his  Bristol  parish  which  stirred  the  whole  town.  He  was 
known  to  hold  prayer  meetings,  a  religious  exercise  which 
had  no  standing  among  proper  EpiscopaHans. 

Griswold  became  bishop  of  the  Eastern  Diocese,  which 
included  all  of  New  England  except  Connecticut.  He  found 
twenty- two  parishes  in  this  district,  served  by  sixteen  clergy- 
men. Trinity  (Boston),  Trinity  (Newport),  and  St.  John's 
(Providence)  were  strong  and  wealthy.  Christ  Church 
(Boston),  St.  Paul's  (Newburyport),  St.  Michael's  (Bristol), 
St.  Paul's  (the  "  Narragansett  Church  "),  St.  John's 
(Portsmouth),  and  St.  James's  (Great  Barrington)  were 
self-supporting,  but  unable  to  contribute  much  towards  the 
salary  of  a  bishop.  Griswold  retained  his  rectorship  at 
Bristol.  Even  so,  he  had  to  live  within  narrow  financial 
limits.  He  understood  the  economies  of  the  country  clergy 
and,  on  that  account,  was  so  much  the  more  a  welcome  guest 
in  their  houses.  He  went  about  his  great  diocese,  travelling 
in  stage  coaches  over  bad  roads  through  rain  and  snow, 
preaching  the  gospel  in  meeting-houses  and  on  hillsides,  and 
encouraging  his  scattered  congregations.  He  was  a  mission- 
ary bishop. 

The  episcopate  of  Griswold,  beginning  in  181 1,  and  ending 
in  1843,  carried  the  Episcopalians  of  New  England  out  of  the 
period  of  depression  into  the  period  of  dissension. 

These  stages  of  progress  were  not  peculiar  to  this  com- 
munion but  belong  to  the  general  history  of  the  Christian 
church  in  this  country.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  was  an  ebb  tide  in  religion.  It  was  due  in 
part  to  the  reaction  which  followed  the  Great  Awakening. 
In  1770,  at  Newburyport,  Whitefield  had  preached  his  last 
sermon.  He  stood  in  the  doorway  of  the  parsonage  in  the 
dark  of  the  evening  holding  a  lighted  candle  in  his  hand  and 
preached  till  the  flame  sank  in  the  socket;  then  he  went 


242  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

upstairs,  and  died  that  night.  It  was  a  symbol  of  the  whole 
situation.  The  flame  of  emotion  which  had  been  kindled  in 
New  England  waned  into  a  weary  indifference.  The  enthu- 
siasm and  excitement  of  the  revival  meetings  gave  the  con- 
verts a  distaste  for  quiet  services.  The  new  way  of  becoming 
a  Christian,  by  a  psychological  experience  rather  than  by 
sacraments  and  patient  nurture,  had  brought  great  numbers 
of  people  into  the  churches,  but  it  had  not  succeeded  in 
keeping  them. 

The  ebb  tide  was  also  due  in  part  to  the  absorbing 
political  interests  of  the  time.  After  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution men  were  engaged  in  the  great  task  of  estabhshing 
the  institutions  of  the  new  government.  This  absorbing 
work,  proceeding  in  the  midst  of  discussions  in  which 
every  citizen  took  part,  so  filled  the  general  mind  as  to 
crowd  out,  for  the  moment,  the  old  interest  in  religion. 
Congregations  listened  eagerly  to  political  orations,  and 
deserted  the  preachers  unless  they  preached  poHtics.  A 
third  influence,  added  to  the  spiritual  reaction  and  to  the 
political  enthusiasm,  was  a  popular  unbehef  imported  from 
France.  It  was  not  altogether  without  reason  that  timid 
persons  in  New  England  hid  their  Bibles  lest  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson should  get  them.  Jefferson  got  a  good  many  of  them 
by  a  process  akin  to  the  transformation  in  the  fairy  stories 
when  the  treasure  of  jewels  is  changed  into  common  stones. 
Thomas  Paine  was  still  more  successful.  Every  New  Eng- 
land village  had  its  militant  atheist  who  stopped  sober  citi- 
zens at  the  post  office  when  they  came  to  get  their  mail  and 
robbed  them  of  their  faith.  The  new  French  fashion  of 
infidelity,  like  the  new  French  gowns  and  bonnets,  affected 
the  remotest  hamlets  of  Vermont  and  Maine.  In  the  col- 
leges, the  churches  were  extinct.  At  Yale,  at  Harvard, 
institutions  founded  for  the  purpose  of  training  young  men 
for  the  ministry,  it  was  possible  to  find  one  or  two  professing 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  243 

Christians,  but  no  more.  At  the  College  of  William  and 
Mary,  in  Virginia,  the  students  freely  debated  "  whether 
there  be  a  God,"  and  "  whether  Christianity  has  been  bene- 
ficial or  injurious  to  mankind."  The  Episcopal  Church 
shared  in  this  profound  discouragement.  In  Virginia, 
Chief- Justice  Marshall  believed  that  it  was  too  far  gone  to 
be  ever  revived.  In  New  York,  Bishop  Provoost  thought  it 
would  die  out  with  the  old  colonial  families. 

This  depression  gradually  changed  into  reverent  faith 
and  confidence,  into  new  interest  and  progress,  as  it  had 
done  a  thousand  times  before,  and  will  do  a  thousand  times 
again.  In  the  course  of  nature,  after  the  ebb  tide  came  the 
flood.  But  the  flood  had  its  own  disquieting  consequences. 
With  the  new  enthusiasm,  and  the  restored  interest  in  reli- 
gion, came  divisions  of  parties  and  controversial  battles 
between  them.  The  period  of  depression  was  followed  by 
a  period  of  dissension.  Outside  the  Episcopal  Church  the  dif- 
ferences appeared  mainly  in  matters  theological :  the  debates 
had  to  do  with  doctrines :  the  Trinitarians  and  the  Unitarians, 
the  Orthodox  and  the  Liberals,  the  Old  School  and  the  New  en- 
gaged in  animated  discussion.  Within  the  Episcopal  Church 
the  differences  appeared  mostly  in  matters  ecclesiastical. 

The  Church  was  growing.  In  1832,  Vermont  became  a 
diocese  by  itself.  In  1 843 ,  Rhode  Island ;  in  1 844,  New  Hamp- 
shire; Maine  in  1847  elected  their  own  bishops.  Then  came 
the  Oxford  Movement.  It  was  in  1845  that  John  Henry 
Newman  went  to  Rome.  The  debates  which  ensued  brought 
out  the  differences  between  the  High  Church  and  the  Low, 
between  the  Catholic  Episcopalians  and  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copalians. Eastburn  had  now  succeeded  Griswold  as  bishop 
of  Massachusetts.  In  November,  1845,  the  bishop  officially 
admonished  the  rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Advent. 

That  parish  had  been  organized  "  with  a  view  to  secure  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  north-western  portion  of  the  city  the 


244  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

ministrations  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church;  and  more 
especially  to  secure  the  same  to  the  poor  and  needy  in  a 
manner  free  from  unnecessary  expense  and  all  ungracious 
circumstances."  The  first  service  was  held  on  Advent 
Sunday  in  1844,  and  the  rector  was  the  Rev.  William  Cros- 
well.  The  congregation  met  in  an  upper  room  on  Merrimack 
Street,  near  Causeway.  When  Bishop  Eastburn  came  for 
the  purpose  of  confirmation,  making  his  first  visit  to  the 
new  parish,  what  he  saw  displeased  him  much.  He  wrote 
a  letter  about  it  to  the  clergy  of  the  diocese.  "  I  observed," 
he  said,  "  to  my  inexpressible  grief  and  pain,  various  offen- 
sive innovations  upon  the  ancient  usage  of  our  church.  In 
the  form  of  the  communion  table;  in  the  decorations  of 
golden  candlesticks  and  of  a  large  wooden  cross  by  which  it 
is  surmounted;  and  in  the  postures  used  in  front  of  it  by 
the  assistant  minister  ...  I  perceived  with  sorrow  super- 
stitious puerihties  of  the  same  description  with  those  which 
already,  in  the  case  of  another  parish  church  of  this  diocese, 
had  called  forth  a  pubhc  expression  of  disapprobation,  first 
from  my  reverend  predecessor,  now  resting  from  his  labors, 
and  subsequently  from  myself."  The  reference  was  to  the 
church  in  Nantucket,  whose  former  rector  was  now  the  assist- 
ant at  the  Chutch  of  the  Advent.  The  objectionable  pos- 
ture consisted  in  kneehng  before  the  table  instead  of  at  one 
of  the  church  chairs.  The  bishop  proceeded  further  to 
characterize  the  ritual  as  "  childish,"  as  bearing  an"  offen- 
sive resemblance  to  the  usages  of  that  idolatrous  papal 
communion  against  which  our  Prayer  Book  so  strongly  pro- 
tests," and  as  likely  to  "  expose  the  Church  of  our  affections  " 
to  the  "  ridicule  and  contempt "  of  "all  sensible  and  en- 
lightened persons  of  other  Christian  bodies." 

The  vestry  replied,  very  courteously,  that  their  com- 
munion table  was  a  very  plain  piece  of  furniture,  made  of 
pine  wood,  having  four  unmistakable  legs,  and  looking  quite 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  245 

unlike  a  Roman  altar,  and  that  their  candles  were  never 
burned  except  at  night,  for  purposes  of  illumination,  and 
were  used  in  preference  to  "  gas  fixtures  or  globe  lamps." 
Indeed,  the  arrangements  of  the  chancel,  so  far  as  they  repre- 
sented the  Oxford  Movement  at  all,  appear  to  have  intro- 
duced the  new  ways  in  the  very  mildest  form.  But  the 
bishop  would  have  none  of  them.  And  there  the  matter 
rested.  The  bishop  refused  to  visit  the  parish  for  confirma- 
tion till  the  offensive  ornaments  were  removed,  and  the  rector 
and  vestry  refused  to  remove  them.  Each  side  exhibited 
that  perseverance  of  the  saints  which  in  sinners  is  called 
obstinacy. 

The  Church  of  the  Advent  was  fighting  another  battle 
in  that  old  war  for  liberty  of  conscience  and  the  right  of  dif- 
ference in  which  the  Puritans  had  been  engaged  in  England. 
They  were  maintaining  their  freedom  to  order  their  own  serv- 
ice, within  reasonable  limits,  in  their  own  way.  They  were 
asserting  that  High  Churchmen  as  well  as  Low  Churchmen 
had  a  right  to  live  in  Massachusetts.  Roger  WilHams  had 
made  the  same  claim  for  the  Baptists,  and  Mary  Dyer  for 
the  Quakers.  William  Croswell  was  their  blood  relation. 
They  were  all  of  the  same  mind  and  spirit.  And  they  all 
accomplished  their  great  purpose.  The  period  of  discussion, 
both  within  and  without  the  Episcopal  Church,  was  a  time 
of  stress  in  New  England,  but  the  result  was  the  establish- 
ment of  the  freedom  to  worship  God,  in  a  sense  far  wider 
than  even  the  forefathers  of  Plymouth  dreamed  of. 

When  the  Civil  War  began  it  looked  for  a  moment  as  if 
the  Episcopalians  of  New  England  might  again  be  found  on 
the  unpopular  side.  Having  stood,  a  little  detached  minority, 
against  the  Great  Awakening  and  against  the  American 
Revolution,  it  was  possible  that  they  might  stand  aloof  from 
the  struggle  to  abolish  slavery  and  preserve  the  Union.  The 
factor  of  personal  friendship  entered  into  the  situation  as  it 


246  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

had  done  in  the  War  of  Independence.  The  clergy  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  in  New  England  knew  their  brother  clergy 
of  Virginia  and  the  other  Southern  States  in  an  intimacy 
which  had  no  parallel  in  other  communions.  This  was  the 
result  of  meeting  in  the  long  sessions  of  the  General  Conven- 
tion. So  Bishop  Hopkins  of  Vermont  declared  himself 
with  great  plainness  on  the  Southern  side.  He  published  a 
pamphlet  in  which  he  maintained  that  the  Southern  States 
had  a  right  to  secede,  and  in  which  he  argued  that  negro 
slavery  was  sanctioned  by  the  Bible.  Abraham  kept  slaves  in 
Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  why  should  they  not  be  kept  by  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  Springfield,  Illinois  ? 

Happily,  however,  the  Episcopal  Church  was  now  too 
strong  to  be  dominated,  or  even  represented,  by  any  indi- 
vidual bishop.  In  spite  of  Bishop  Hopkins,  the  General 
Convention  adopted  a  loyal  resolution,  and  prayed  for  the 
success  of  the  Government.  Bishop  Hopkins,  on  the  one 
side,  continued  stoutly  in  his  unpopular  conviction,  while 
Bishop  Mcllwaine  of  Ohio,  on  the  other  side,  went  to  Eng- 
land at  the  request  of  President  Lincoln  to  present  the  North- 
ern cause  to  the  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  Enghsh 
Church.  The  general  effect  was  to  demonstrate  again  that 
among  the  EpiscopaUans  are  to  be  found  very  different 
varieties  of  citizenship  as  well  as  of  churchmanship.  Hopkins 
and  Mcllwaine,  differing  in  politics,  Croswell  and  Eastburn, 
differing  in  ritual,  were  all  alike  in  good  standing  in  the 
hospitable  church. 

Meanwhile,  the  church  continued  to  grow  in  numbers  and 
in  influence.  Trinity  College,  at  first  called  Washington 
College,  had  been  founded  as  early  as  1823.  The  Berkeley 
Divinity  School  was  established  in  1850  at  Middletown, 
Connecticut,  and  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  at 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  in  1867,  for  the  preparation  of 
men  for  the  ministry.    St.  Paul's  School  at  Concord,  IsTew 


THE  EPISCOPALIANS  247 

Hampshire,  Groton  School  and  St.  Mark's  in  Massachusetts, 
St.  George's  School  in  Portsmouth,  Rhode  Island,  Pomfret 
School  at  Pomfret,  sent  out  year  by  year  increasing  classes  of 
privileged  youth  to  college,  and  then  to  places  of  influence 
in  the  community.  Out  of  the  periods  of  depression  and  of 
dissension  the  church  entered  into  the  period  of  its  present 
prosperity.  Phillips  Brooks  is  the  characteristic  figure  of 
this  time,  whose  ministry  is  still  a  living  memory. 

The  Episcopalians,  even  now,  are  not  a  numerous  people. 
There  are  three  hundred  clergymen  in  Massachusetts,  and 
more  than  two  hundred  in  Connecticut,  eighty  in  Rhode 
Island;  but  only  fifty- two  in  New  Hampshire,  forty-four 
in  Vermont,  and  thirty-seven  in  Maine.  The  strength  of 
the  church  is  in  the  cities.  The  communicants  in  New  Eng- 
land, all  told,  fall  a  little  short  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand. But  the  influence  of  a  church  in  the  community  is 
often  out  of  proportion  to  its  numerical  strength.  In  Con- 
necticut in  the  old  time,  when  the  Congregationalists  were 
the  standing  order,  the  Episcopalians  were  described  as 
"  sober  dissenters."  The  adjective  is  still  applicable.  They 
are  for  the  most  part  conservative  persons,  cherishing  their 
traditions,  adverse  to  change,  highly  appreciative  of  order 
in  government  and  in  worship.  They  differ  from  all  their 
neighbors  in  being  at  the  same  time  Catholic  and  Protestant. 
Some  of  them  are  more  Catholic  than  Protestant,  and  some 
are  more  Protestant  than  Catholic,  but  these  are  the  two 
ecclesiastical  parties  in  the  church,  like  the  political  parties 
in  the  nation;  agreeing  and  disagreeing,  on  the  whole,  for  the 
general  good.  There  are  now  few  in  either  party  who  are 
still  of  the  mind  of  their  predecessors  in  New  England  who 
said,  "  We  are  all  good  churchmen :  we  maintain  an  offensive 
demeanor  towards  them  that  are  without." 


VI 
THE   METHODISTS 

WILLIAM  EDWARDS  HUNTINGTON 


THE   METHODISTS 

I.   PERSONAL  AND   INSTITUTIONAL  FORCES 

THE  historian  of  New  England  Methodism  cannot  well 
avoid  reference  to  the  roots  of  its  denominational  life 
in  old  England.  There  is  a  vital  nexus  between  the  cen- 
turies as  we  mark  them  off  in  our  chronology;  and  a  living 
bond  that  binds  the  salient  events  in  any  great  movement 
in  religious  or  in  secular  history.  Methodism  stands  for  one 
of  the  distinctive  movements  in  modern  Christianity.  We 
get  at  the  temper,  purpose,  and  significance  of  a  political 
party,  or  a  religious  denomination,  by  learning  something 
of  the  "  movers  "  of  the  particular  organism  examined, 
which  makes  history  and  takes  a  distinct  place  in  the  orderly 
progress  of  civilization. 

To  one  man  in  the  eighteenth  century  all  branches  of 
Methodism,  in  all  quarters  of  the  world,  look  back,  as  the 
prime  mover  of  the  generic  body  to  which  all  are  affiliated,  — 
that  man  was  John  Wesley.  Living  in  an  age  of  religious 
formalism  and  degeneracy,  he  lifted  up  a  standard  of  per- 
sonal devotion  and  piety  that  was  never  doubted  or  im- 
peached. Sprung  from  the  great  middle  class  in  which,  and 
below  it,  all  over  the  British  Isles,  there  was  much  of  gross 
ignorance  and  superstition,  he  would  not  begin  his  active 
life  before  he  had  been  trained  in  the  best  learning  that 
Oxford  could  give  him.  Reared  in  the  Established  Church, 
he  would  not  rebel  against  its  order,  though  he  could  not  be 
restrained  in  his  activities  by  limitations  wliich  he  considered 
unreasonable  and  obstructive  to  his  mission  for  the  spiritual 

251 


252  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

redemption  of  England.  Two  facts  in  John  Wesley's  career 
are  so  conspicuous  and  of  such  wide  influence  in  the  progress 
of  Methodism  that  they  deserve  mention  for  the  purpose  I 
have  in  view.  One  of  these  facts,  that  has  an  immense  sig- 
nificance for  modern  Christianity,  is  that  Mr.  Wesley  made 
preaching  the  Gospel  the  chief  business  of  his  long  and 
marvellously  active  life.  He  was  no  less  "  burdened  "  with 
his  message  to  fellowmen  than  were  the  Hebrew  prophets 
who  "  cried  aloud  "  and  "  spared  not,"  "  Hfting  up  the  voice 
like  a  trumpet."  His  sermons,  as  we  now  read  them,  were 
not  sensational,  or  remarkable  in  literary  style  or  captivating 
imagery;  but  were  clear,  straightforw^ard  discussions  and 
appeals,  and  their  main  drift  and  purpose  was  to  stir  the 
conscience,  to  break  through  the  crust  of  unbelief  and  rouse 
men  to  repent  and  have  faith  in  God.  The  preaching  of 
Wesley  had  a  special  emphasis  given  it  by  the  very  opposition 
he  met  from  authorities  of  the  Established  Church.  His 
message  was  not  welcomed  by  Churchmen;  so  he  went  to 
the  fields.  Without  churchly  surroundings,  very  frequently 
with  no  accessories  such  as  we  conceive  to  be  necessary  for 
Christian  worship  and  the  spiritual  effectiveness  of  religion, 
Wesley  and  Whitefield  were  the  great  preachers  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  The  impression  they  made  upon  their  age 
was  lasting.  Glad  tidings,  Wesley  conceived,  were  given  to 
the  world  to  be  published;  and  in  ten  thousand  sermons,  to 
multitudes  of  hungry  souls,  he  preached  up  and  down  the 
highways  of  England  the  "  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ." 

Another  fact  in  Wesley's  life  and  labors  was  his  power  to 
organize,  by  building  his  followers  into  simple  but  effective 
organic  relations.  This  was  a  marked  quality  of  his  genius. 
He  was  not  content  with  great  audiences,  emotional  up- 
heavals of  whole  communities,  startling  conversions,  or 
tempestuous  excitement  when  religious  fervor  was  so  violent 
as  to  unman  men  and  leave  them  prostrate  and  strengthless. 


THE  METHODISTS  253 

He  was  too  profound  an  interpreter  of  true  religion  to  be 
satisfied  with  simply  exercising  his  power  to  move  great 
audiences  and  stir  men  into  religious  conviction  and  the 
personal  acceptance  of  the  Christian  faith  and  practice.  He 
was  glad  to  start  men  into  a  new  life,  help  them  to  break 
away  from  old  bondages  of  irreligion  and  sin;  but  he  had  a 
more  permanent  thing  in  mind  as  he  gave  his  converts  and 
followers  the  supporting  power  of  organization,  to  bind  them 
in  sympathetic  fellowship,  to  consolidate  their  influence,  to 
make  possible  a  wider  dissemination  of  gospel  truth  than 
his  own  personal  labors,  marvellous  as  they  were,  could 
accomplish.  His  classes  formed  for  the  spiritual  growth 
and  encouragement  of  their  members,  his  societies  banded 
together  under  the  somewhat  stringent  ethical  and  religious 
rules  that  Wesley  formulated,  his  Conferences  in  which  the 
preachers  of  this  new  phase  of  Christianity  formed  a  brother- 
hood for  united  and  effective  service  as  ministers  of  practical 
religion,  —  all  these  forms  of  organic  life  in  early  Methodism 
in  England  were  products  of  Wesley's  systematizing  genius. 
Whitefield  had  superior  gifts  as  a  preacher,  but  he  did  not 
have  John  Wesley's  power  to  strengthen  and  make  perma- 
nent the  results  of  his  preaching  by  the  use  of  such  social 
mechanism  as  Wesley  had  the  skill  to  originate  and  vitalize. 
When  Methodism  crossed  the  Atlantic,  the  two  outstand- 
ing traits  that  were  conspicuous  in  John  Wesley's  career,  and 
which  I  have  just  mentioned,  came  with  it  in  the  persons 
and  work  of  those  who,  in  our  colonies,  began  laying  the 
foundations  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  (as  it  after- 
wards became)  in  America.  I  am  reminded  by  this  King's 
Chapel,  in  which  we  are  assembled,  that  as  early  as  1736, 
Charles  Wesley  on  returning  through  Boston  to  England 
from  Georgia,  where  he  and  his  brother  John  had  under- 
taken some  missionary  work  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Established  Church,  preached  both  in  King's  Chapel  and 


254  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  Christ  Church,  Boston;  but  this  event  antedated  even 
the  beginnings  of  the  distinctive  movement  of  Wesleyan 
evangelism.  The  first  of  Wesley's  missionaries  did  not  come 
to  our  New  World  till  1769.  Richard  Boardman,  1772,  and 
William  Black,  1784,  were  among  the  earliest  of  these  pio- 
neers to  visit  New  England.  Both  these  men  attempted  to 
establish  a  society  in  Boston,  but  failed  of  support.  At 
length,  Freeborn  Garrettson,  a  flaming  spirit,  tireless  in 
labors,  ranging  up  and  down  the  North  Atlantic  States  with 
unquenchable  zeal  and  remarkable  ability  both  as  preacher 
and  organizer,  made  a  visit  to  New  England,  passing  from 
Litchfield,  Connecticut,  through  Hartford  and  Worcester 
to  Boston.  On  the  4th  of  July,  1790,  he  preached  in  Dr. 
Mather's  church,  on  Hanover  Street,  and  subsequently 
made  some  efforts  to  gather  the  nucleus  of  a  Society  of 
Methodists,  but  the  fruits  of  his  labors  were  not  conspicuous. 
On  this  very  itinerary  of  Garrettson 's  he  met,  on  his  way  to 
Providence,  another  fellow-protagonist  of  Methodism,  Jesse 
Lee,  who,  with  the  same  evangelistic  spirit  as  his  own,  was 
now  preaching  his  way  through  New  England.  A  Virginian 
by  birth,  with  no  special  training  for  his  work  as  a  preacher, 
but  of  great  force  of  character,  Lee  started  upon  his  career 
in  that  memorable  year  1776,  then  but  eighteen  years  of 
age;  at  first,  simply  holding  cottage  meetings,  for  he  did  not 
undertake  regular  ministerial  work  till  1783  and  was  not 
ordained  till  1790.  His  heart  was  drawn  out  especially 
toward  New  England,  although  his  first  work  was  done  in 
North  Carolina.  The  open  field  here,  the  lack  of  any  forms 
of  rehgious  life  such  as  Methodism  fostered,  kindled  in  Jesse 
Lee  a  kind  of  apostolic  passion  for  attempting  a  new  work 
in  these  young  New  England  States.  A  Congregational 
minister  and  historian.  Dr.  Joseph  B.  Clark,  said: 

In  his  doctrinal  teaching,  Jesse  Lee,  the  pioneer  of  Methodism  in 
these  parts,  suited  such  as  were  of  Arminian  tendencies;  in  his  fervent 


THE  METHODISTS  255 

style  of  address  he  was  acceptable  to  many  warm-hearted  Calvmists 
tired  of  dull  preaching  I  The  wild  enthusiasm  of  the  quakers  had  long 
since  disappeared,  and  their  numbers  were  diminishing.  The  martyr 
spirit  which  animated  the  first  generation  of  Baptists  had  subsided 
with  the  removal  of  their  civil  disabilities,  and  their  religious  zeal  suf- 
fered a  proportional  decline.  If  Jesse  Lee  had  not  come  into  Massa- 
chusetts, some  one  else  pressed  in  spirit,  like  Paul  at  Athens,  "  when 
he  saw  the  city  wholly  given  to  idolatry,"  would  have  found  utterance, 
and  would  have  had  followers. 

No  missionary,  ancient  or  modern,  ever  set  out  with  a  more 
earnest  purpose  to  serve  the  cause  of  the  Christian  faith,  than 
did  Jesse  Lee,  as  he  rode  on  horseback  and  without  escort 
through  the  rough  highways  of  New  England.  At  Norwalk, 
Connecticut,  he  began  his  ministrations  and  had  but  a  small 
group  of  hearers  gathered  at  the  roadside.  At  New  Haven 
the  Court  House  was  opened  to  him,  where  President  Stiles 
of  Yale  College  was  one  of  his  hearers.  His  first  circuit  of 
one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  included  over  twenty  preaching 
appointments;  but  no  marked  success  was  gained  in  win- 
ning converts  or  in  organizing  societies.  The  opposition 
felt,  and  often  expressed,  by  the  pastors  of  the  Congrega- 
tional body  was  a  serious  obstacle  to  Lee's  work.  They 
looked  upon  all  Methodist  preachers  as  heralds  of  strange 
doctrines,  and  as  enthusiasts  who  were  likely  to  kindle  fires 
of  fanaticism  which  would  endanger  the  standing  order  of 
Congregationalism.  Lee's  services  under  the  Great  Elm  on 
Boston  Common,  where  multitudes  listened  to  his  sermon, 
were  among  the  notable  beginnings  of  Methodism  in  Boston. 
But  more  successful  were  his  labors  in  Lynn,  where  he  gath- 
ered a  company  of  co-workers  and  planted  the  seed  which 
sprang  up  and  has  borne  fruit  a  hundred  fold,  making  Lynn 
one  of  the  strongest  centres  of  Methodism  in  New  England. 
Lee's  outfit  as  a  preacher  was  comparatively  limited.  His 
education  was  elementary;  but  his  courage,  devotion,  and 
faith,  his  readiness  to  enter  untried  and  rugged  fields,  made 


256  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

him  the  man  for  the  time  and  the  work.  He  was  built  on  a 
large  plan;  his  voice  was  big  and  sympathetic,  his  heart  was 
large,  with  great,  unselfish  motives.  He  had  a  keen  sense 
of  humor  and  a  vital  faith  that  makes  Hght  of  difficulties  and 
sacrifices,  can  carry  heavy  burdens  brave-heartedly,  and 
make  religion  attractive  and  beautiful  by  a  personality  that 
everybody  loves  to  meet.  Jesse  Lee's  name  stands  for  a 
certain  type  of  early  Methodist  preachers  in  America  and 
New  England  that  has  a  remarkable  record  in  evangelism. 
Francis  Asbury,  who  became  the  first  Bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  was  of  a  different  mould;  a 
stronger  mind,  and  of  a  personality  more  nearly  after  the 
pattern  of  John  Wesley  than  any  other  early  American 
leaders  of  Methodism.  The  two  great  elements  of  power 
found  in  John  Wesley,  which  I  have  mentioned,  were  also 
conspicuous  in  Francis  Asbury.  He  was  a  tireless  and  effec- 
tive preacher  and  a  skilful  organizer.  Born  in  England  in 
1745,  of  humble  ancestry,  he  did  not  have  Wesley's  advan- 
tage of  liberal  learning;  but,  by  great  industry  and  studious 
tastes  he  put  himself  through  such  discipline  in  Greek, 
Hebrew,  and  general  literature  as  gave  him  good  standing 
as  an  educated  man  for  that  time.  He  was  not  built  or 
trained  for  a  theologian  or  a  scholastic  leader.  He  was 
rather  predestined  by  nature  and  by  early  circumstances  to 
be  a  crier  in  the  wilderness  —  the  American  wilderness  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  His  very  limitations  were  in  some 
measure  his  strength.  For  a  delicately  trained  man  to  have 
undertaken  the  work  that  Asbury  did,  some  one  has  said, 
would  have  been  to  attempt  to  fell  American  forests  with  a 
Sheffield  razor.  He  began  preaching  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
entered  the  regular  itinerant  ministry  at  twenty-one,  and 
at  twenty-six  gave  himself  to  the  missionary  work  in  Amer- 
ica. Thirteen  years  later  he  was  made  the  first  Bishop  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  and  ordained  in  1784.    He 


THE  METHODISTS  257 

started  from  England  with  a  purse  of  ten  pounds,  a  suit  of 
clothes  and  two  blankets  —  the  gifts  of  friends;  these  were 
his  only  outfit.  He  entered  at  once  upon  a  work  that  was 
a  constant  succession  of  sacrifices  and  even  of  suffering. 
His  horse  was  his  usual  means  of  journeying,  and  his  annual 
tour  averaged  six  thousand  miles,  through  untracked  forests 
and  unbridged  streams.  Of  slender  physical  resources,  he 
braved  all  variations  of  climate  and  all  hostihties  of  wild 
beasts  and  wild  men  with  dauntless  courage,  and  with  an 
inflexible  purpose  to  help  found  in  this  western  world  the 
empire  of  righteousness.  His  tours  were  from  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  to  the  Mississippi  Valley.  He  was  constantly  on 
the  move.  Sometimes  a  great  revival  broke  out  under  his 
preaching,  —  as  when  in  1776,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Revo- 
lution, he  wrote  from  Virginia  in  his  Journal, — "I  preached 
from  Ezekiel's  vision  of  the  dry  bones ;  and  there  was  a  great 
shaking!  I  was  obliged  again  and  again  to  stop  and  beg 
the  people  to  compose  themselves,  but  they  could  not.  Some 
on  their  knees  and  some  on  their  faces  were  crying  mightily 
to  God  all  the  time  I  was  preaching."  "  This  wonderful 
revival,"  he  says,  "  spread  through  fourteen  counties  in 
Virginia,  and  burned  its  way  into  adjacent  Colonies." 
Asbury  was,  as  he  called  himself  at  one  time,  "as  an  iron 
pillar  and  a  wall  of  brass."  In  firmness  and  discipline  he 
lacked  nothing  of  what  a  great  leader  should  be.  But  he 
was  likewise  tender-hearted  in  his  evangelism,  always  win- 
ning men  into  the  service  and  faith  of  the  Gospel.  When  he 
landed  in  Philadelphia  to  begin  his  work,  there  were  only 
six  hundred  Methodists  in  America;  at  the  end  of  his  career, 
one  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  members  were  reported 
at  the  General  Conference  of  181 2.  His  work  for  New  Eng- 
land was  conspicuous;  for  he  presided  at  twenty-five  Con- 
ferences, and  gave  unstintedly  of  his  services  among  the 
young  societies  that  needed  the  sanction  and  impulse  which 


258  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

only  a  great  leader  could  give.    He  did  not  have  a  warm 
welcome  in  Boston.    His  Journal  has  this  comment: 

I  felt  much  pressed  in  spirit  as  if  the  door  was  not  open.  .  .  ,  I  have 
done  with  Boston  until  we  can  obtain  a  lodging,  a  house  to  preach  in, 
and  some  to  join  us.  Some  things  here  are  to  be  admired.  Of  their 
hospitality  I  cannot  boast.  In  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  wicked 
Charleston,  six  years  ago,  a  stranger,  I  was  kindly  invited  to  eat  and 
drink  by  many  —  here  by  none. 

But  after  a  more  successful  visitation  in  Lynn  he  wrote : 

Here  we  shall  make  a  firm  stand,  and  from  this  central  point  shall 
the  light  of  Methodism  and  truth  radiate  through  the  State.  ...  I 
am  led  to  think  the  Eastern  Church  [the  Congregational]  will  find  this 
saying  true  in  the  Methodists,  viz.,  "  I  will  provoke  you  to  jealousy 
by  a  people  that  were  no  people,  and  by  a  foolish  nation  will  I  anger 
you." 

A  better  feeling  soon  prevailed;  for  an  original  record 
shows  that  in  the  period  1795-97,  when  the  first  Methodist 
church  was  building,  subscriptions  were  made  (of  from  five 
to  ten  dollars  each)  by  Rev.  John  T.  Kirkland,  afterwards 
president  of  Harvard  College,  Rev.  James  Freeman,  pastor 
of  King's  Chapel,  Rev.  John  Murray,  founder  of  Universal- 
ism,  and  Rev.  Jedidiah  Morse,  pastor  of  the  First  Church 
in  Charlestown. 

Enough  has  been  now  said  to  show  that  the  beginnings  in 
New  England  of  this  Christian  denomination  that  we  are 
studying  were  exceedingly  small.  Self-sacrificing,  heroic 
souls  were  engaged  in  strengthening  and  enlarging  its  bound- 
aries; for  nearly  seventy-five  years  the  gain  in  numbers 
and  in  material  equipment  was  modest,  but  substantial. 
During  this  period  the  religious  life  of  Methodists  showed 
more  distinctively  the  traits  of  Wesley's  followers  in  Eng- 
land. The  idiosyncrasies  of  the  sect  were  more  apparent. 
The  camp  meeting,  the  class  meeting,  hortatory  preaching, 
demonstrative  forms  of  worship,  simplicity  and  even  barren- 


THE  METHODISTS  259 

ness  in  the  meeting-houses,  were  some  of  the  marks  that 
earUer  New  England  Methodism  bore,  and  which  in  this 
region  are  now  far  less  conspicuous,  if  not  entirely  obliterated. 
Dr.  Daniel  Dorchester  has  thus  described  the  churches: 

The  first  Methodist  Church  buildings  were  simple  structures  made 
of  unplaned  boards,  entirely  without  paint;  often,  for  several  years 
unfinished.  For  seats  they  had  rough  planks,  laid  on  blocks,  and  no 
backs.  The  pulpit  was  the  carpenter's  bench  used  in  the  erection  of 
the  building,  pushed  to  one  end  of  the  room  and  a  single  board  nailed 
upright  upon  the  front  and  another  short  board  flat  on  its  top,  made 
a  resting  place  for  Bible  and  hymnbook.  Even  such  plain  meeting- 
houses were  often  embarrassed  with  debts. 

As  we  read  of  the  support  that  most  of  those  pioneer  preach- 
ers received,  we  are  reminded  of  apostolic  times,  when 
scantiest  resources  were  given  to  those  who  were  the  heralds 
of  the  faith.  In  the  year  1800  it  was  agreed  by  the  General 
Conference  that  the  annual  allowance  for  each  preacher 
should  be  $80,  $80  for  his  wife,  $16  for  each  child  under  seven, 
and  $24  for  each  child  between  seven  and  fourteen.  In  1803, 
twenty-six  preachers  received  about  $47  each.  So  constant 
was  the  deficit  that  appeared  each  year,  below  the  amount 
the  New  England  preachers  should  have  received,  that  as 
late  as  1825  the  shortage  was  $14,517,  and  incomes  were  in 
those  trying  years  only  from  30  per  cent  to  70  per  cent  of 
what  was  expected.  Today,  in  most  of  the  denominations, 
there  are  stirring  appeals  heard  for  endowments  that  shall 
provide  a  much  more  reasonable  average  salary  for  pastors 
of  small  flocks.  A  vigorous  campaign  is  now  in  progress  to 
raise  an  endowment  fund  of  $5,000,000  to  help  poorly  paid 
Methodist  preachers.  Those  heroic  men  of  one  hundred 
years  ago  would  have  thought  our  minimum  salary  of  today 
($500  or  $600)  a  munificent  living. 

But  strenuous  conditions  of  life  have  often  produced 
heroic  men.    The  Spartan  theory  was  that  conditions  must 


26o  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

be  made  rigorous  in  order  that  the  Greeks  of  that  time  should 
be  discipUned  to  heroic  standards.  It  is  certain  that  easy 
circumstances,  luxurious  settings  for  domestic  and  religious 
life  and  activities,  do  not  of  themselves  tend  to  produce  the 
strongest  types  of  character.  Neither  does  poverty  of  itself, 
and  of  necessity,  make  for  nobility  in  human  character. 
There  must  be  deep-set  in  the  soul  itself  a  principle  of  life, 
and  standards  of  character,  not  dependent  upon  outer  cir- 
cumstances, whether  of  opulence  or  of  destitution.  Those 
early  American  preachers,  like  Jesse  Lee,  Francis  Asbury, 
Wilbur  Fisk,  were  representative  of  a  real  nobility  in  the 
annals  of  our  race;  untitled,  with  no  crests  or  equipage, 
but  with  plain  clothes,  simple  fare,  slenderest  income, 
they  "  wrought  righteousness,"  stopped  the  mouths  of 
ecclesiastical  lions,  quenched  the  violence  of  fiery  perse- 
cution, out  of  weakness  were  made  strong,  and  obtained  a 
good  report  through  faith. 

•  There  Vv^as  just  enough  opposition  to  Methodism  in  New 
England  to  make  it  earnest,  fearless,  compact,  and  vigorous 
in  meeting  the  situation.  Sometimes  harsh  things  were  said 
and  done.  Abel  Stevens,  the  historian  of  Methodism,  puts 
in  one  paragraph  samxples  of  the  treatment  that  some  of 
these  itinerants  suffered:  "  Sabin  was  knocked  down  and 
struck  on  the  head  to  the  peril  of  his  life  with  the  butt  of  a 
gun;  Wood  was  horsewhipped;  Christie  was  summoned 
out  of  bed  to  answer  to  a  charge  of  \dolating  the  laws  by 
marrying  a  couple  of  his  people;  Willard  was  wounded  in 
the  eye  by  a  blow,  the  effect  of  which  was  seen  through  his 
life;  Kibby  was  stoned  while  preaching;  and  Taylor  was 
drummed  out  of  town."  Parsons  Cooke,  pastor  of  the  First 
Church  in  Lynn,  wrote  a  whole  volume,  A  Century  of  Puri- 
tanism and  a  Century  of  its  Opposites,  in  which  he  poured  out 
his  vials  of  wrath  upon  the  Methodists.  We  cannot  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  coming  of  the  Arminian  theology  into 


THE  METHODISTS  26 1 

New  England,  in  the  preaching  of  these  pioneers,  was  a 
distinct  challenge  to  the  disciples  and  preachers  of  Calvinism. 
It  was  John  Wesley  against  Jonathan  Edwards,  as  far  as 
certain  theological  concepts  were  concerned.  Edwards's 
theological  teachings  had  permeated  the  orthodox  churches; 
and  doctrinal  preaching  was  the  predominant  style  of  pulpit 
address.  On  the  other  hand,  the  itinerants  emphasized  the 
experimental  side  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  appeal  was 
made  to  the  heart,  the  conscience,  the  springs  of  moral  life, 
and  not  primarily  to  the  powers  of  reasoning  and  the  ability 
to  measure  the  force  and  cogency  of  dialectics.  Moreover, 
the  itinerants  stood  upon  a  wider  platform  of  appeal,  as 
interpreters  of  the  divine  administration,  in  the  moral  gov- 
ernment of  our  world.  Instead  of  preaching  a  limited  atone- 
ment, and  a  divine  foreordination  that  doomed  certain 
souls  to  eternal  darkness,  the  new  gospel,  which  was  simply 
the  old  re-emphasized,  opened  the  way  of  life  to  "  whoso- 
ever will."  The  whole  accent  of  the  gospel  message  was 
different,  and  with  what  results  I  shall  endeavor  to  show 
later.  I  am  not  aware  that  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
Methodism  have  changed  since  those  days  of  debate.  But 
some  of  the  fundamentals  of  Congregationalist  theology 
have  either  changed  or  been  practically  eliminated  from 
the  orthodox  preaching  of  today. 

That  Methodism  has  made  its  advances,  not  only  in  New 
England  but  in  its  wider  American  fields,  by  employing  in 
its  ministry  many  untrained,  or  half-trained,  men,  is  often 
spoken  of  as  a  reproach  to  the  denomination.  But,  while 
this  weakness  in  its  ministry  is  being  steadily  overcome  (for 
it  has  been  a  weakness)  there  has  been  and  is  a  condition  of 
illiteracy  in  our  communities  that  palliates  the  fault,  if  such 
it  can  be  rightly  called,  of  letting  uneducated  men  be  religious 
leaders  and  preach  the  gospel  with  some  intellectual  stam- 
mering.   That  condition  prevailed  very  widely  in  New  Eng- 


262  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

land,  and  in  all  other  parts,  during  the  first  two  hundred 
years  after  the  Pilgrims  set  their  feet  upon  our  shores.  Lack 
of  schools,  scarcity  of  books,  strenuous  habits  of  daily  life 
necessary  in  order  to  wrest  a  living  from  crude  circumstances, 
made  it  impossible  for  the  larger  portion  of  communities  to 
find  their  way  to  any  high  state  of  learning  or  intelligence  in 
things  literary  or  scientific.  The  Wesleys,  in  choosing  men 
to  aid  them  in  the  evangelistic  work  that  they  led,  were  glad 
to  use  men  who  were  of  earnest  religious  Ufe  and  had  some 
gift  in  public  address,  even  if  they  were  not  all,  like  them- 
selves, university  graduates.  So  long  as  a  wise  leadership 
is  in  control,  the  Church  of  Christ  would  seem  to  be  justified 
in  doing  what  the  Great  Teacher  himself  did  in  selecting  as 
his  first  ministers  men  from  common  life  with  no  uncommon 
outfit  —  except  that  they  were  illuminated  and  moved  upon 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  to  declare  His  truth  to  fellowmen. 
Every  age  in  Christian  history  has  had  its  quota  of  such 
preachers.  As  the  general  level  of  intelligence  in  any  nation 
or  community  rises,  in  just  that  proportion  will  it  be  neces- 
sary that  those  who  teach  religious  truth,  and  stand  as  oracles 
of  a  divine  message,  be  intellectually  qualified  for  this  high 
function  by  the  best  culture  available. 

I  am  thus  led  to  mention  one  striking  example  of  a  Meth- 
odist preacher  who  in  some  respects  represented  the  class 
of  an  uneducated  ministry,  but  in  other  respects  stood  out 
alone  as  possessed  of  a  genius  that  made  him  notable.  This 
man  was  Edward  T.  Taylor,  "  Father  Taylor,"  of  the  Boston 
Seaman's  Bethel.  Born  in  Virginia,  in  very  humble  con- 
ditions, he  was  persuaded,  when  seven  years  old,  by  a  sea 
captain  to  take  up  a  sailor's  Ufe,  which  he  followed  for  ten 
years.  At  seventeen  he  wandered  into  a  religious  service 
held  in  Bromfield  Street  Church  by  Elijah  Hedding  (after- 
wards bishop),  was  moved  by  the  appeals,  gave  his  heart  to 
God  in  a  new  act  of  surrender,  and  resolved  to  be  a  preacher 


THE  METHODISTS  263 

of  Glad  Tidings.  But  he  was  scarcely  able  to  read,  and  yet 
people  were  attracted  to  him  "  by  his  fervor,  simplicity,  and 
humor."  It  was  not  thought  advisable,  however,  for  so 
illiterate  a  young  man  to  be  led  into  the  ministry;  and  he 
was  soon  off  at  sea  again,  this  time  in  a  United  States  pri- 
vateer, in  the  war  service  of  1 8 1 2 .  His  ship  was  captured  and 
he,  with  the  crew,  was  thrown  into  a  British  prison  in  Hali- 
fax. Here  he  exercised  the  "  gift  that  was  in  him  "  and  his 
shipmates  much  preferred  his  prayers  and  sermons  to  those 
of  the  prison  chaplain,  who  at  the  petition  of  the  prisoners 
was  relieved  in  favor  of  Taylor.  Here  he  really  began  his 
remarkable  ministry.  So  ignorant  was  he  that  he  could  not 
read  his  own  text:  the  Bible  must  be  read  to  him;  but 
little  by  little  he  mastered  the  rudiments  of  learning,  keep- 
ing steadily  on  after  the  months  of  his  captivity,  preaching 
in  Saugus,  as  he  had  opportunity,  peddling  on  week  days 
and  farming  a  little  to  earn  a  UveUhood;  then  taking  charge 
of  a  feeble  flock  at  Marblehead;  then,  for  nearly  ten  years, 
preaching  successively  in  seven  or  eight  different  towns  on 
Cape  Cod,  in  southern  Massachusetts,  and  in  Rhode  Island. 
In  1828,  he  was  called  to  take  charge  of  the  Seaman's 
Bethel,  Boston,  a  religious  home  especially  for  sailors,  a 
non-sectarian  church.  It  was  largely  supported  by  Uni- 
tarians, but  the  pulpit,  by  the  agreement,  was  to  be  occupied 
by  a  Methodist  preacher,  appointed  by  a  bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Here  Taylor  found  the  field 
for  which  he  was  by  nature,  gifts,  and  experience  admirably 
adapted.  Within  four  years  he  was  the  acknowledged  popu- 
lar pulpit  orator  of  Boston.  Here  is  a  vivid  description  of 
Father  Taylor  by  one  of  his  closest  friends  —  Cyrus  Bartol, 
a  Unitarian  : 

No  American  citizen,  Webster,  Clay,  Everett,  Lincoln,  Choate,  has 
a  reputation  more  impressive  and  unique.  He  belonged  to  no  class. 
In  any  dogma  he  was  neither  leader  nor  led.    He  stands  for  the  sea, 


264  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  his  fame  has  been  borne  by  thousands  of  ships,  by  mariners  who 
christened  him  "  Father,"  into  every  port  of  the  globe. 

Dr.  Bellows  said  of  him : 

He  had  a  heart  as  tender  as  his  mind  was  strong,  and  his  imagina- 
tion was  Protean;  and  this  gave  such  a  sympathetic  quality  to  his 
voice  and  his  whole  manner  that  more  than  any  speaker  of  power  we 
ever  knew,  he  was  the  master  of  pathos.  Who  can  forget  how  rough 
sailors,  beautiful  cultivated  Boston  girls,  men  like  Webster  and  Emer- 
son, shop-boys  and  Cambridge  students,  Jenny  Lind,  Miss  Bremer, 
Harriet  Martineau  —  everybody  of  taste  or  curiosity  who  visited 
Boston  —  were  seen  weeping  together  with  Father  Taylor  ? 

Such  was  one  of  the  unlearned  itinerants  of  the  nineteenth 
century  New  England  Methodism.  Of  course  he  was  a  rare 
genius.  But  it  may  fairly  be  presumed  that  there  were  many 
unlettered  preachers  like  Taylor,  well-read  only  in  the 
Scriptures,  but  unlike  Taylor,  having  no  gift  in  oratory, 
whose  hearts  were  burdened  with  messages  of  divine  truth. 
They  were  not  blest  with  a  brilliant  imagination  and  yet 
their  eyes  had  seen  a  vision  of  spiritual  things,  and  their 
tongues  could  not  withhold  the  story  of  what  they  had 
seen  and  felt  in  their  own  experience. 

We  turn  now  to  another  personality  that  had  great  influ- 
ence in  shaping  the  course  of  events  for  New  England 
Methodism  —  Wilbur  Fisk.  He  represented  another  rank 
of  preachers  and  leaders.  His  preparation  was  from  a 
Christian  home  of  modest  means,  and  by  collegiate  study 
such  as  he  could  gain  by  one  year  at  the  University  of 
Vermont  and  two  years  at  Brown  University,  from  which 
he  was  graduated  in  181 5.  His  power  resided  in  a  well- 
balanced  mind,  a  kind  heart,  a  fervent  desire  to  do  good, 
and  a  broad  outlook  upon  the  world  with  its  crying  need  of 
the  light  and  blessings  of  Christianity.  By  the  natural 
qualifications  of  Mr.  Fisk,  it  was  to  him  that  the  selecting 


THE  METHODISTS  265 

officers  turned,  when  Wilbraham  Academy  was  opened  in 
1826,  as  to  a  man  well-j5tted  to  be  its  first  principal.    Four 
years  later,  in  1831,  Wesleyan  University  was  organized  at 
Middletown,  Connecticut,  and  he  was  elected  its  first  presi- 
dent.   His  services  as  one  of  the  early  Methodist  educators 
in  New  England  was  noteworthy.     When  he  entered  the 
ministry  in  1818,  there  was  not  a  single  literary  institution 
of  any  note  under  Methodist  patronage.    He  felt  deeply  the 
necessity  of  such  means  of  training,  both  for  the  ministry 
and  the  laity,  and  gave  himself  to  the  cause  of  Christian 
education  with  great  devotion  and  zeal.     When  elected 
bishop  in  1836,  he  declined  the  office,  saying,  "  1  beheve  I 
can  do  more  for  the  cause  of  Christ  where  I  am  than  I  could 
as  bishop."    As  a  preacher  he  was  one  of  the  foremost  of 
his  time.    A  flexible,  sympathetic  voice,  an  attractive  face, 
a  native  and  compelling  dignity  of  manner,  and  a  fervor  in 
pulpit  address  that  stirred  his  audiences  made  him  an  effec- 
tive minister  of  the  faith  wherever  he  was  heard.     At  both 
Academy  and  College  he  proved  himself  to  be  the  attractive 
and  efficient  leader  of  youth.     Both  these  institutions  re- 
ceived a  lasting  impression  from  his  character  and  work. 
He  believed  that  education  in  secular  things  needs  to  be 
coordinated  with  discipline  in  morals  and  religion,  in  order 
to  be  most  worthy  and  produce  the  best  type  of  human 
character.     Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  weakness  of  the 
denominational  school,  college,  or  university  on  the  side  of 
a  wide  patronage,  it  is  true  that  the  religious  note  in  the 
educational  programme  can  be  more  clearly  sounded  in  such 
an  institution.    If,  however,  a  kind  of  pseudo-piety  is  made 
to  take  the  place  of  high  standards  in  scholarship,  that  is 
bad.    Neither  is  it  good  if  a  dry  intellectualism,  a  cynical 
spirit  of  criticism  toward  the  whole  realm  of  spiritual  truth 
and  the  fundamentals  of  Christianity,  crowd  out  of  student 
life  the  wholesome  power  of  religion  that  makes  all  learning 


266  RELIGIOUS  raSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

clearer  and  more  effective.  Fisk  taught  and  exemplified  in 
his  owTi  well-balanced  and  elevated  character  that  fine 
relationship  between  culture  and  religion  which  is  such  a 
desideratum  in  our  modern  educational  schemes.  Since 
his  time  there  have  been  established  in  New  England  six 
Methodist  academies  besides  Wilbraham,  and  here  in  our 
city,  Boston  University.  Without  exception  these  institu- 
tions —  Boston  and  Wesleyan  Universities,  Wilbraham, 
Tilton,  Kent's  Hill,  Montpelier,  Poultney,  Bucksport,  and 
East  Greenwich  Academies  —  all  have  not  only  the  reUgious 
auspices  of  the  denomination  that  fosters  them,  but  what  is 
far  more  important,  they  have  distinctive  religious  influ- 
ences and  instruction  at  work,  as  educational  forces,  along 
with  the  scholastic  regimen.  No  one  can  measure  the  good 
done  by  these  educational  institutions.  Wesleyan  University 
has  been  the  inspiration  and  the  strength  of  hundreds  of 
leading  minds  who  have  gone  out  into  nearly  every  impor- 
tant department  of  American  life,  —  social,  civic,  economic, 
educational,  religious,  —  and  have  won  distinction.  Boston 
University  has  graduates  in  every  continent,  —  men  and 
women  well  equipped  for  conspicuous  and  responsible  tasks. 
In  the  service  of  the  Christian  faith,  in  the  wide  field  of 
education,  in  the  realm  of  political  service  and  statecraft, 
in  the  legal  profession  at  the  bar  and  on  the  bench,  in  medi- 
cal practice  and  advancement,  this  University  has  sent  out 
its  well  trained  graduates  for  the  past  forty  years  and  more, 
into  all  quarters  of  our  nation  and  to  many  distant  fields  of 
service.  It  is  impossible  in  my  limited  time  to  give  even  the 
list  of  names  of  those  who  made  these  educational  institu- 
tions what  they  have  become.  Men  of  great  breadth  of 
public  spirit  and  utmost  generosity  have  built  the  material 
equipment;  men  of  almost  prophetic  vision,  and  of  keen 
appreciation  of  what  modem  education  should  be,  have  been 
administrators  and  teachers. 


THE  METHODISTS  267 

A  denomination  must  be  judged  by  its  fruits,  —  not  simply 
in  the  count  of  members,  lay  and  clerical,  but  in  the  varied 
leadership  it  furnishes  for  the  Christian  civilization  in 
which  it  is  one  factor.  A  university  allied  to  the  religious  pro- 
gramme which  a  Christian  church  naturally  makes  for  itself, 
although  not  attempting  a  too  strict  propagandism  of  formal 
religious  thinking  or  practice,  has  a  function  of  importance 
to  fulfill  that  is  not  narrow  or  unworthy.  Boston  University 
was  fortunate  in  its  founders.  Isaac  Rich,  Jacob  Sleeper, 
Lee  and  William  Claflin,  Edward  H.  Dunn,  Alden  Speare, 
Roswell  R.  Robinson,  are  the  names  of  men  who  will  always 
be  remembered  as  the  fathers  of  the  institution.  William 
Fairfield  Warren  was  its  educational  founder,  whose  bow 
still  abides  in  strength,  —  a  man  of  the  same  high  ideals 
that  inspired  Wilbur  Fisk.  President  Warren  had  the  imagi- 
nation to  plan  large  things  for  the  University,  realizing  that 
standards  must  be  high  and  great  even  though  they  can  only 
be  attained  by  gradual  stages  of  growth  and  by  approximate 
achievements.  His  broad  plans  for  university  instruction, 
his  unswerving  faith  in  the  fortune  of  the  institution  as  he 
looked  patiently  through  the  years  of  its  early  struggles, 
made  him  the  man  for  the  time  and  the  task.  Of  noble 
Christian  character,  a  thorough  scholar  in  oriental  and  cos- 
mological  lore,  he  administered  for  more  than  thirty  years 
the  affairs  of  the  University  and  all  the  while  held  aloft  the 
torch  of  exemplary  learning. 

While  we  must  omit  many  names  of  those  who  have  been 
eminent  teachers  in  the  New  England  universities  that  have 
been  mentioned,  there  was  one  man  who  taught  in  the  higher 
ranges  of  philosophical  and  religious  thinking  in  Boston 
University  for  nearly  forty  years,  whom  we  cannot  fail  to 
mention,  —  Borden  P.  Bowne.  He  began  his  work  here  in 
1876.  Before  coming  hither  he  had  already  published  a 
critique  of  Herbert  Spencer's  general  philosophic  positions. 


268  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

His  contention  was  against  the  materialistic  trend  of  the 
Enghsh  evolutionists,  led  by  Darwin  and  Spencer;  and  his 
steady  purpose  was  to  construct  a  philosophical  system  em- 
bodying such  a  theory  of  evolution  as  would  not  be  obnox- 
ious to  Christian  revelation  and  a  spiritual  conception  of 
the  universe  and  its  first  Great  Cause,  His  teaching  was 
given  in  a  period  when  just  such  trenchant  criticism  of 
materiahstic  philosophy  was  needed  as  proceeded  from  his 
lecture-room.  Students  from  all  quarters,  especially  theo- 
logical students,  eagerly  crowded  his  courses.  They  felt 
that  this  new  voice  was  sounding  a  clear  note  of  confidence 
that  Christianity  had  nothing  to  fear  from  philosophy  if 
the  philosophy  were  well  grounded  and  clearly  reasoned 
through.  Loyal  to  the  fundamental  positions  of  Methodism, 
he  had  no  timidity  in  leading  the  thought  of  his  denomination 
to  new  and  larger  outlooks  for  both  philosophy  and  faith. 
His  conceptions  of  theism  were  clearly  on  the  side  of  Chris- 
tianity in  its  great  affirmations.  The  Ground  of  the  universe 
to  his  thinking  is  not  simply  a  driving  Force  working  in  some- 
what uncertain  methods  through  vast  spaces  and  measure- 
less aeons  of  time;  but  rather  a  personal  Being,  intelligent, 
unresting,  transcendent  in  wisdom  and  power,  and  yet 
immanent  in  all  his  laws  and  all  his  works,  bringing  to  pass 
the  marvels  of  an  evolving  order,  because  evolution  means  the 
unfolding  of  His  purposes  and  His  thought  for  the  universe. 
Bowne's  period  of  teaching  was  also  in  a  time  when  biblical 
literature  was  submitted  to  most  searching  analysis  and 
criticism.  So  far  as  his  teaching  could  properly  include  a 
philosophy  of  revelation,  his  trumpet  gave  no  uncertain 
sound.  The  Bible  is  not  inerrant,  and  yet  it  contains  a  clear 
revelation  of  the  gracious  purpose  of  God  for  men.  In 
authorship,  it  has  the  mark  of  human  limitations,  and  yet 
the  greatness  of  its  spiritual  messages  to  the  world  bear  the 
character  of  divinity.     He  did  not  underrate  the  work  of 


THE  METHODISTS  269 

reverent  biblical  scholarship;  but  to  him  the  body  of  revela- 
tion is  like  the  clear  light  of  the  sun,  in  which  the  spots  on 
its  surface  do  not  dim  its  glory.  His  theological  conceptions 
were  more  true  to  biblical  standards  than  are  those  of 
Eucken;  his  theistic  postulates  were  more  intelligible  than 
Bergson's;  his  view  of  evolution  took  the  whole  question 
out  of  Spencerian  materialism  and  joined  it  to  such  a  con- 
ception of  the  universe  and  its  Creator  as  accords  with  a 
thoroughly  Christian  philosophical  system  of  thought.  His 
teachings,  though  not  unchallenged  in  some  quarters,  have 
been  widely  accepted,  not  only  among  the  clergy  of  Method- 
ism; for,  in  England,  and  in  Germany,  in  the  educational 
institutions  of  Japan  and  China,  his  philosophical  books 
have  had  the  serious  attention  of  the  best  thinkers  as  real 
contributions  to  the  study  of  some  great  problems  of  human 
thought. 

There  is  no  single  institution  in  New  England  that  has 
done  more  for  the  religious  interests  of  Methodism  than 
the  one  whose  history  we  will  now  trace  in  a  few  closing 
paragraphs.  At  Newbury,  Vermont,  in  the  year  1840,  the 
Theological  Society  of  Newbury  Seminary  was  organized. 
This  was  only  an  attachment  to  the  Academy  then  flourish- 
ing, and  consisted  of  a  few  students  who  were  looking 
toward  the  ministry.  The  teachers  were  the  Principal  of  the 
Academy  and  the  Rev.  Osman  C.  Baker,  later,  in  1852,  made 
bishop.  The  studies  were  essay  writing,  criticism,  discus- 
sion, preaching,  a  curriculum  quite  in  contrast  with  theo- 
logical courses  of  today.  This  simple  round  of  exercises  was 
soon  enlarged  to  take  in  the  study  of  Hebrew,  courses  of 
lectures,  and  theological  text-book  instruction.  In  1844,  the 
Rev.  John  Dempster  became  the  head  of  the  school,  a  man 
of  unusual  ability,  bom  and  reared  in  Scotland  and  a  gradu- 
ate of  Edinburgh  University.  Under  his  administration  the 
scope  of  the  Institute  was  extended,  an  attractive  offer  of  a 


270  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

location  and  building  from  Concord,  N.  H.,  was  accepted, 
and  with  the  name  of  the  Methodist  General  Biblical  Insti- 
tute the  school  was  estabhshed  in  1847,  by  a  New  Hampshire 
charter  at  Concord.  For  twenty  years  the  Institute  did  its 
work  there.  Opening  with  two  professors  and  ten  students, 
in  1867  its  faculty  was  more  than  doubled  and  there  were 
thirty- three  students  in  attendance.  In  twenty  years  two 
hundred  and  ten  men  had  been  graduated.  Then  this  school 
for  itinerants  again  itinerated,  and  was  established  in  this 
city,  under  the  name  of  the  Boston  Theological  Seminary. 
It  found  a  temporary  home  in  Pinckney  Street,  and  in  1869 
removed  to  the  new  Wesleyan  Building  on  Bromfield  Street. 
In  that  year  Boston  University  was  incorporated,  WilHam 
Claflin  being  Governor  of  Massachusetts.  The  natural 
growth  of  the  Seminary  soon  suggested  that  it  be  united 
with  the  University  as  an  integral  part  of  the  larger  whole, 
and  in  187 1  legislative  authority  was  granted  and  the  Semi- 
nary became,  what  it  has  been  ever  since,  the  School  of 
Theology  of  Boston  University.  The  College  of  Liberal 
Arts,  the  School  of  Law,  and  the  School  of  Medicine  were 
soon  added  as  departments  of  the  University,  each  to  work 
out  its  own  special  destiny,  under  the  auspices,  support, 
and  control  of  one  common  Board  of  Trustees.  It  was  not 
until  1886  that  the  School  of  Theology  was  able  to  leave  its 
hired  apartments  on  Bromfield  Street  and  gain  a  home  of 
its  own.  A  mansion  on  Mt.  Vernon  Street  was  offered  for 
sale;  the  University  trustees  bought  the  property,  refitted 
it  for  both  dormitory  and  school  purposes,  and  made  it  the 
New  England  headquarters  for  theological  training  of 
Methodist  ministers.  In  recent  time,  through  the  bounty 
of  generous  friends,  a  dormitory  has  been  added  on  Louis- 
burg  Square,  and  a  new  structure  containing  a  chapel, 
library,  lecture-rooms,  and  gymnasium  has  been  built  next 
to  the  main  building  on  Chestnut  Street. 


THE  METHODISTS  27 1 

For  the  past  three  years  only  college  graduates  have  been 
admitted  as  candidates  for  the  S.T.B.  degree,  and  even 
with  this  restriction  the  annual  attendance  has  been  over 
two  hundred.  They  come  from  all  quarters  of  the  country 
—  except  the  Southern  States  —  the  Middle  West  especially 
sending  from  some  of  the  best  of  the  denominational  colleges 
and  the  State  universities  picked  men  of  excellent  equipment 
and  promise. 

This  is  a  thoroughly  New  England  institution.  Planted 
in  our  chief  city,  it  finds  the  advantages  of  the  metropolis 
far  greater  than  any  superficial  disadvantages.  It  is  a  great 
means  of  culture  for  young  men  to  be  in  the  very  centre  of 
its  throbbing  life,  where  the  tides  of  business  pour  through 
the  streets,  where  all  conditions  of  human  society  are  found 
side  by  side,  where  religious  institutions  of  most  diverse 
forms  and  tenets  are  established,  philanthropies  are  in  opera- 
tion, education  is  at  work  in  every  field  of  intellectual  ad- 
vance, where  music  and  art  have  their  seats  of  influence  and 
open  their  opportunities  to  the  eager  minds  of  youth.  For 
a  theological  school  to  be  in  touch  with  all  this  vast  aggre- 
gate of  human  interests,  achievements,  and  vital  forces  is 
stimulating  and  enriching  to  a  very  high  degree.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  a  young  man  can  prepare  for  the  clerical 
profession  in  such  environments  and  turn  out  a  dull  preacher. 
And  yet  this  strange  result  does  sometimes  occur! 

Generous  offers  came  from  the  authorities  of  Harvard 
College  when  the  School  removed  here  from  Concord,  open- 
ing its  great  privileges  to  this  institution,  as  it  has  since  done 
to  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  and  to  the  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  if  the  Trustees  would  locate  it  in 
Cambridge.  But  they  decided  for  Boston,  and  time  has 
already  shown  the  wisdom  of  the  choice.  Nearly  fourteen 
hundred  men  have  found  their  ministerial  equipment  here 
and  have  gone  forth,  some  to  uttermost  parts  of  the  world, 


272  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  preach  the  Gospel.  There  has  been  a  steady  and  well- 
ordered  increase  of  courses  of  study  in  the  progress  of  events. 
Some  disciplines,  like  Hebrew,  have  taken  a  less  conspicu- 
ous place  than  formerly;  new  fields  of  investigation  in 
Sociology,  in  Missions,  in  Religious  Psychology  and  Pedagogy 
have  been  opened.  This  School  has  the  honor  of  being  the 
first  institution  in  the  world  to  set  apart  and  maintain  a 
distinct  professorship  for  the  comparative  study  of  Religions, 
an  invaluable  training  for  those  especially  who  expect  to 
enter  oriental  missionary  work. 

Dr.  Patton,  long  the  president  of  Princeton  Theological 
Seminary,  said  at  the  inauguration  of  his  successor  last 
October,  "  Princeton  Seminary  is  a  fortress  and  is  committed 
to  the  defense  of  Christianity."  President  Hibben,  on  the 
same  occasion,  in  his  address,  dissented  from  Dr.  Patton's 
simile  and  said,  "  Modern  warfare  has  proved  the  futility 
of  the  fortress,  and  the  fortress  at  the  present  time  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Christian  world  has  but  one  function,  namely, 
to  throw  wide  its  gates  in  order  that  those  within  may  ad- 
vance for  a  sortie  which  marks  the  beginning  of  an  aggressive 
campaign.  We  believe  that  in  the  day  before  us  there  will 
extend  the  long  line  of  an  aggressive  campaign  across  the 
battle-fields  of  Europe,  and  into  Asia,  and  which  will  finally 
girdle  the  whole  earth.  Let  us  therefore  of  every  nation 
and  of  every  tribe,  of  every  creed  and  ritual,  whatever  our 
name  or  sign,  come  together  in  harmonious  and  united 
ranks,  moving  forward  toward  that  ultimate  victory  which 
will  inaugurate  a  new  era  of  universal  peace  and  good  will 
among  men." 

The  Seminary  of  theological  learning  that  we  have  been 
considering  is  acting  under  this  latter  conception.  This  is 
the  ideal  for  Methodism.  It  is  what  New  England  needs, 
and  what  the  world  needs  —  an  institution  that  is  the  train- 
ing ground  for  active  and  aggressive  campaigning  against 


THE  METHODISTS  273 

the  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air,  against  spiritual  wicked- 
ness, in  high  places  and  low  places,  wherever  the  foes  to 
human  life  and  human  society  lurk  —  "  organized  evil,  in- 
justice, inhumanity,  the  scorn  of  God,  and  hostility  to  the 
law  and  love  of  Christ." 

A  Christian  denomination  in  our  time  has  a  new  set  of 
demands  upon  it  that  must  be  met  if  its  life  is  to  be  efficient. 
Creed-making  is  not  now  in  order.  Looking  backward  is 
not  the  right  direction  for  the  vision  that  is  to  discover  the 
will  of  God  for  our  age.  The  cloister  is  behind  us.  Intoler- 
ance is  slowly  vanishing.  Superstition  in  rehgion  is  fading 
away.  What  Methodism  has  been  doing  in  practical  ways, 
and  by  its  genius  should  do  more  effectively  in  the  coming 
age,  will  be  considered  in  my  second  lecture. 

II.   PRACTICAL   BEARINGS  OF   NEW  ENGLAND 
METHODISM 

The  Pilgrims  brought  with  them  two  things  which  had  much 
to  do  in  shaping  the  New  England  type  of  American  life,  — 
a  Calvinistic  theology  and  an  independent,  or  Congregational, 
form  of  church  polity.  It  was  natural  for  the  descendants 
of  those  sturdy  pioneers,  and  for  their  successors  —  immi- 
grants from  Great  Britain  especially — to  feel  that  the  Con- 
gregational association  of  independent  churches  on  these 
shores  held  a  substantial  primacy  as  a  witnessing  body  for 
the  Christian  faith.  As  this  feeling  of  primacy  came  to  be 
widely  held,  and  even  proclaimed,  the  feehng  grew  into  a 
belief  and  the  belief  exhaled  itself  into  a  kind  of  atmosphere, 
in  which  Congregationalism  "  lived  and  moved  and  had  its 
being  "  with  a  fair  degree  of  complacency.  Nothing  dis- 
turbed the  serenity  of  this  atmosphere  until  Christian  con- 
fessions, other  than  that  formulated  at  Geneva  by  John 
Calvin,  edged  their  way  into  these  colonies  along  the  North 
Atlantic   coast.     Baptists  under  the  lead  of  an  English 


274  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

preacher  appeared  as  early  as  1635.  Roger  Williams  ob- 
tained a  charter  and  founded  the  colony  of  Rhode  Island 
in  1644,  with  the  provision  that  freedom  of  conscience  should 
be  a  fundamental  right.  But  that  same  year  Massachusetts 
issued  laws  against  Baptists,  imprisoned  several  in  165 1, 
banished  others  in  1669,  and  in  1680  the  doors  of  a  Baptist 
meeting-house  in  Massachusetts  were  nailed  up!  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  Established  Church  of  England  fared 
scarcely  better  in  the  Old  Bay  Colony;  for  in  1629,  Governor 
Endicott  shipped  off  two  members  of  the  Church  of  England 
without  ceremony  —  even  though  they  were  of  the  original 
patentees  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony.  Quakers  in 
those  times  (in  the  seventeenth  century),  who  were  at  all 
defiant  of  magistrates,  were  punished  cruelly  and  some  were 
even  put  to  death.  Methodists  were  also  subject  to  like 
opposition.  Endicott's  doctrine  was,  "  God  forbid  that  our 
love  of  truth  should  be  so  cold  that  we  should  tolerate  error." 
But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  dwell  on  the  hostihties  that 
Methodists  were  called  to  face,  and  to  outlive,  witliin  the 
borders  of  New  England.  Only  so  far  as  it  was  necessary 
in  order  to  obtain  an  equal  chance  of  enjoying  religious 
hberty  did  the  preachers  of  Methodism  engage  in  polemics. 
They  felt  that  the  genius  of  their  faith  was  constructive. 
It  was  their  business  to  build,  not  to  fight;  to  preach  against 
sin,  not  against  dogmas ;  to  make  the  gospel  attractive  and  not 
repulsive,  and  win  men  into  the  faith  and  following  of  Christ. 
The  most  serious  reaction  against  the  Calvinistic  theology 
of  New  England  was  the  emergence  of  Unitarianism.  This 
movement,  or  protest,  was  led  by  men  of  high  character  and 
inteUigence,  and  within  New  England  especially  had  great 
influence  among  the  refined  and  intelhgent  elements  of 
society.  Unitarians  of  the  School  of  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  Henry  Ware,  George  Putnam,  Rufus  EUis,  James  Free- 
man Clarke,  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  and  Edward  Everett  Hale, 


THE  METHODISTS  275 

represented  the  wealth,  cultivation,  and  public  spirited 
citizenship  of  Boston  during  several  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  So  far  as  prestige  was  concerned,  in  the 
intelligence  of  its  membership,  in  the  ability  of  its  preachers, 
in  the  philanthropic  activity  of  its  churches,  in  devoted  and 
efficient  service  to  the  State,  by  noble  citizenship,  the  Uni- 
tarian Church  was  a  strong  rival  of  Congregationalism  for 
superiority  in  Boston  and  Massachusetts.  Methodism  was 
by  its  genius  and  purpose  destined  to  take  its  course  of  pro- 
cedure not  in  the  wake  of  Congregationalism,  nor  could  it 
enter  into  alliance  with  the  Unitarian  movement.  It  was 
less  rationalizing  than  Unitarianism  in  its  interpretation  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  in  its  analysis  of  the  divine  nature  and 
government;  but  more  liberal  than  Calvinism  in  its  philos- 
ophy of  salvation.  So  Methodism  was  a  distinct  factor  in  the 
theological  aggregate  represented  by  the  various  churches. 
We  must  assume  that  Methodism  was  conscious  of  a  definite 
kind  of  religious  service  to  be  done  by  its  membership  for 
the  world.  This  distinctive  work  was  partly  determined  by 
its  machinery.  An  itinerant  ministry,  short  pastorates,  a 
connectional  bond  between  societies  that  consohdates  effort 
and  influence,  official  oversight  by  men  set  apart  to  super- 
intend (for  the  bishops  were,  and  are,  simply  officers  set 
apart,  not  ordained,  to  a  special  office  of  supervision),  — 
all  such  organic  features  of  the  denomination  made  it 
natural  for  the  church  to  keep  steadily  interested  in  its  own 
form  of  rehgious  service,  and  work  out  its  own  destiny. 
But  this  organic  body  has  always  recognized  the  need  of 
keeping  in  friendly  relations  with  other  Christian  churches. 
Loyal  to  its  own  fundamental  principles,  holding  the  faith 
as  a  good  steward,  it  has  also  been  ready  to  show  the  friendly 
and  hospitable  spirit  toward  others  of  different  name  and 
type  at  every  point  of  contact  which  community  service 
presents. 


276  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

I .  The  theological  tenets  of  Methodism  —  such  as  the 
doctrine  of  the  trinity,  the  atonement,  the  free  will  of  man, 
the  expulsive  power  of  divine  love  in  the  human  heart,  the 
necessity  of  the  new  birth,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion —  still  stand  as  the  buttresses  of  the  denominational 
beliefs;  but,  it  must  be  said  at  the  same  time,  the  emphasis 
is  placed  not  so  much  upon  the  acceptance  of  any  dogma, 
when  a  new  member  seeks  admission  to  the  Methodist  fold, 
as  it  is  upon  the  experience  by  which  the  child,  or  the  man, 
may  be  able  to  say,  "  I  know  that  I  have  passed  from  death 
unto  life";  "whereas  1  was  blind,  now  I  see";  "old 
things  have  passed  away,  all  things  have  become  new." 
The  principal  confession  is  that  the  current  of  a  new  life 
begins  to  move  in  the  deeps  of  the  soul ;  the  vision  is  cleared 
of  film  and  cloud,  and  is  opened  to  a  new  realm  of  spiritual 
things;  the  old  material  region  of  actual  experiences  is 
illuminated  by  a  new  light  that  transforms  and  glorifies  it, 
making  it  a  new  world.  I  cannot  discover,  however,  that 
there  is  among  the  people  of  Methodism  any  rigid  uniformity 
of  opinion  where  men  are  called  upon  to  define  in  exact 
language  what  they  severally  hold  in  explicit  terms  as  their 
doctrinal  belief  in  the  trinity,  or  the  atonement,  or  escha- 
tology.  The  difiiculty  that  always  lies  in  these  doctrines  of 
the  faith,  eluding  by  their  transcendent  scope  all  scientific 
accuracy  of  definition,  makes  them  rather  the  background 
of  Christian  thinking  and  religious  service  than  the  very 
tools  of  practical  work.  I  do  not  thus  underrate  or  slur  the 
great  elemental  doctrines  of  Christianity;  for  it  is  the  glory 
of  our  faith,  and  not  a  reproach,  that  it  contains  these  vast 
themes  to  challenge  human  thought.  No  theologian  can  do 
them  full  justice,  no  philosopher  sees  clear  through  the  veil 
that  shuts  off  the  supernatural  realities  from  our  full  under- 
standing. Here  is  a  body  of  Christians,  lay  and  clerical, 
organized,  differentiated  by  a  common  purpose  and  common 


THE  METHODISTS  2// 

hopes,  for  what  ?  The  whole  history  of  this  body  for  which 
we  are  speaking  is  an  answer.  Methodism  has  gone  out  into 
its  work  under  the  commission  of  its  Lord  —  "go  ye  into 
all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature."  It 
is  instinct  with  life.  It  stops  at  no  artificial  frontiers.  It 
passes  by  no  class,  or  race,  or  human  conditions.  It  is  in  the 
world  to  help  to  save  it  from  all  that  degrades  and  imperils 
the  human  soul.  It  will  not  allow  wealth  to  paralyze  its 
energy;  nor  poverty  to  chill  its  ardor.  It  has  no  separate 
ministries  for  the  rich  or  the  poor,  the  black  or  the  white 
man,  the  learned  or  the  unlettered.  "  The  world,"  with  its 
boundless  needs  in  spiritual  things,  "  is  its  field." 

2.  It  is  interesting  to  mention  the  fact,  showing  that 
New  England  is  the  starting  ground  of  large  movements, 
that  it  was  from  Boston  that  Dr.  and  Mrs.  William  Butler 
went  in  1856,  under  commission  from  the  central  authority 
of  the  Missionary  Board,  to  undertake  Christian  work  in 
India.  They  had  scarcely  gained  a  foothold  there  when 
the  Sepoy  Rebellion  burst  over  the  very  scene  of  their 
labors,  and  the  family  fled  to  the  mountains  for  their  lives. 
The  storm  of  rebellion,  after  much  bloodshed  and  social 
upheaval,  was  at  last  stilled,  and  those  dauntless  mission- 
aries, the  Butlers  and  their  associates,  laid  the  foundations 
of  what  became  a  great  Christian  work  for  Hindu  paganism; 
so  that  when  Mrs.  Butler,  as  a  widow,  revisited  the  scene 
of  their  labors  in  1906,  she  found  in  that  Jubilee  year  that 
the  seed  they  had  planted  in  the  days  of  darkness  and  danger 
had  in  fifty  years  brought  forth  fruit  a  hundredfold,  and 
thousands  were  numbered  in  that  once  heathen  community 
as  faithful  followers  of  Christ.  That  same  man  of  apostolic 
zeal,  Dr.  Butler,  having  retired,  after  his  years  of  service, 
from  the  India  mission,  sought  another  field  of  evangelizing 
work  and  was  commissioned  to  a  difficult  task  in  Mexico 
in  1873.    With  remarkable  success  he  and  his  family,  with 


278  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Other  associated  workers,  centralized  their  labors  in  Mexico 
City,  gathered  societies  in  many  other  towns,  built  churches, 
and  put  the  leaven  of  a  wholesome  type  of  Christianity  into 
that  great  country  which  so  sorely  needs  the  cleansing  and 
the  enlightenment  of  a  "  pure  and  undefiled  rehgion  "  to 
save  its  people  from  anarchy  and  destruction.  Dr.  John 
W.  Butler,  worthy  son  and  successor  of  his  father,  has  held 
steadfastly  to  his  post,  as  the  head  of  the  Mexican  mission 
work,  after  his  father's  death,  —  even  through  some  of  the 
most  threatening  periods  of  revolution  since  President  Diaz 
withdrew  from  the  government. 

An  important  missionary  organization  originated  in  Boston, 
when  eight  women  of  large  and  prophetic  vision  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  year  1869.  From  that 
initial  meeting  of  those  leading  minds  there  has  grown  a 
great  organization  whose  well-conducted  machinery  en- 
gages the  devoted  interest  of  thousands  of  women,  whose 
systematic  efforts  in  raising  funds  for  the  support  of  workers 
in  oriental  fields  result  in  very  large  annual  contributions. 
Last  year  this  Society  raised  for  foreign  missions  $931,780. 
This  great  religious  force  is  also  of  New  England  origin. 
One  of  the  first  missionaries  to  go  to  a  foreign  field  from  New 
England  was  the  Rev.  Melville  B.  Cox,  who  in  1833  estab- 
lished a  mission  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa ;  but  lived  only  a 
few  months.  The  Rev.  James  Mudge  entered  upon  editorial 
work  in  India  in  1873,  where  he  did  most  efficient  service, 
through  a  gifted  pen,  for  the  missionary  field  in  South  Asia. 
Since  his  return  from  the  Orient,  he  has  done  unstinted  serv- 
ice to  the  cause  of  missions,  as  well  as  to  the  general  religious 
welfare  of  his  church,  by  his  abundant  writings,  which  have 
appeared  in  books  and  periodicals.  His  History  of  the  New 
England  Conference  is  full  of  stirring  accounts  of  the  religious 
progress  of  the  denomination. 


THE  METHODISTS  279 

3.  An  association  of  Methodist  laymen  began  in  1854  the 
enterprise  of  pubhshing  a  reHgious  paper.  The  Unitarians 
have  had  the  Christian  Register;  the  CongregationaHsts 
their  organ  under  their  own  name,  which  has  just  celebrated 
its  centennial;  the  Baptists,  The  Watchman;  the  Univer- 
salists  their  paper  of  the  same  name.  Zion's  Herald  was  in 
the  field  as  early  as  1823,  a  denominational  mouthpiece  for 
New  England  Methodism  especially.  It  has  always  been 
independent  of  any  ecclesiastical  control,  and  has  claimed 
and  used  the  right  to  discuss  freely  the  broad  interests  of 
the  church,  and  all  questions  that  touch  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious welfare  of  the  community.  Some  of  the  most  gifted 
men  in  the  church  have  been  in  the  line  of  editors,  such  as 
Abel  Stevens,  Gilbert  Haven,  Charles  Parkhurst.  This 
layman's  enterprise  has  been  so  well  conducted  that  the 
paper  has  won  a  distinguished  place  as  a  religious  journal, 
and  its  material  success  is  witnessed  by  the  noble  building 
on  Copley  Square  that  is  not  only  the  home  of  Zion^s  Herald 
but  the  headquarters  of  the  varied  clerical  and  lay  interests 
of  the  denomination  in  New  England. 

4.  It  has  been  a  fundamental  principle  in  Methodism  to 
seek  the  cooperation  of  Christian  women  in  the  life  and 
service  of  the  church.  Women  have  not  yet  been  granted 
ordination  to  the  ministerial  functions,  but  they  are  now 
eligible  to  membership  in  the  General  Conference,  the  law- 
making body  of  the  denomination,  and  in  the  officiary  of 
individual  societies  they  are  likewise  possible  members. 
New  England  Methodism  has  not  been  backward  in  falling 
in  with  a  general  movement,  not  confined  to  this  church, 
but  wide-spread  in  Europe  and  in  the  United  States,  which 
enlists  women  in  a  well-systematized  service  of  charity  and 
social  uplift.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  Methodism,  the  Dea- 
coness Association  is  the  name  for  this  class  of  Christian 
work.      In  1890  this  arm  of  church  service  was  established 


28o  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  Boston;  it  has  since  been  widely  extended  throughout 
New  England  and  the  larger  cities  of  the  United  States. 
The  principal  features  of  this  organization  are,  first  a  Train- 
ing School,  where  young  women  are  instructed  for  a  certain 
time  in  the  duties  of  the  deaconess  and  in  such  courses  of 
study  as  are  necessary  in  order  to  give  the  candidate  a  fair 
equipment  for  becoming  an  instructor  to  the  unfortunate 
and  the  ignorant  whom  she  is  to  meet  in  the  homes  of  poverty 
and  destitution.  Almost  immediately  after  the  Association 
was  established,  a  hospital  was  found  to  be  a  necessity. 
Offers  of  money  came,  interest  was  roused,  and  in  1896,  a 
large  and  well-furnished  hospital  was  built,  which  has  been 
doing  its  beneficent  work  with  the  cooperation  of  many  of  the 
chief  physicians  of  Boston.  Another  Deaconess  Hospital 
was  established  in  Concord,  Mass.,  —  the  gift  of  Charles 
Emerson,  a  nephew  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and  was 
equipped  by  citizens  of  Concord.  The  benevolent  spirit 
toward  this  Association  was  contagious,  and  by  a  gift  made 
in  1 913,  a  home  for  Aged  Methodist  Women  was  also  estab- 
lished in  Concord,  and  in  that  peaceful  valley  has  become 
the  beautiful  home  for  many  who  other\vise  might  spend 
their  declining  years  in  discomfort,  or  even  in  want.  The 
function  of  the  deaconess  in  church  life  is  really  that  of  an 
assistant  to  the  pastorate.  She  ministers,  but  does  not 
preach.  In  a  hundred  delicate  ways  she  carries  to  homes 
that  are  not  what  they  ought  to  be  sympathetic  teaching, 
not  only  in  matters  purely  religious,  although  the  comfort 
and  the  warning  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  are  always  felt  in 
the  messages  she  bears;  but,  in  lessons  of  order,  cleanliness, 
good  taste,  the  care  of  children,  —  the  whole  round  of  family 
conditions  and  relations  —  the  deaconess  is  the  messenger 
of  light  and  blessing.  There  is  a  doubt  in  many  minds 
whether  this  self-sacrificing  work  should  be  done  so  nearly 
without  compensation,  as  it  is  done.    The  work  is  too  trying, 


THE  METHODISTS  28 1 

the  office  is  too  valuable  as  an  ally,  to  ask  noble  young  women 
to  give  themselves  to  it  for  an  income  that  is  a  mere  nothing 
when  compared  with  that  of  the  average  teacher  in  our 
public  schools. 

5.  One  of  the  chief  problems  for  modern  Christianity  to 
solve  for  the  great  municipalities  where  there  is  a  dense 
population,  the  conmiingling  of  many  races,  and  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  human  life,  is  how  to  leaven  these  masses  with 
moral  and  religious  power.  The  regularly  organized  churches 
of  all  names  have  felt  the  insistence  of  this  broad  problem. 
It  is  proper  to  mention  here  one  among  several  institutions 
in  Boston  that  is  doing  great  service  for  the  social  uplift  of 
the  depressed  people  of  our  city,  whose  scope  and  power  is 
so  great  as  to  command  wide  attention,  the  Morgan  Memo- 
rial. Its  origin  and  early  history  are  interesting.  Henry 
Morgan  was  its  founder,  a  man  of  somewhat  eccentric 
methods,  independent,  philanthropic,  warmly  evangelistic, 
a  lover  and  helper  of  the  poor  and  despised.  He  felt  a  call 
to  go  after  outcasts.  He  was  a  revivalist  and  opened  a 
mission  in  1859  in  the  old  Music  Hall.  Then  the  Boston 
Union  Mission  Society  was  organized  and,  with  Mr.  Morgan 
as  its  chief  executive,  there  developed  the  very  elements 
which  now  characterize  the  greatly  enlarged  institution.  In 
1868,  James  Freeman  Clarke's  church  on  Indiana  Place  was 
sold  at  auction  and  purchased  for  the  growing  work  by  Mr. 
Morgan.  This  became  the  centre  of  his  remaining  efforts, 
and  when  he  died  he  left  the  Chapel  property  by  will  to  the 
Benevolent  Fraternity  of  Churches  in  Boston,  —  on  con- 
dition that  the  religious  work  of  the  institution  should  be 
in  control  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  while  the 
Unitarian  body  should  furnish  material  support  and  over- 
sight. But  finally,  in  191 2,  the  controlling  Board  for  the 
entire  work,  instead  of  being  limited  to  the  representatives 
of  two,  was  made  to  include  members  from  several  denomi- 


282  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

nations.  This  work  is  one  of  the  most  successful  examples 
of  the  institutional  church.  It  is  planted  in  one  of  the  most 
cosmopolitan  districts  in  the  world.  Within  half  a  square 
mile  are  quartered  fifty  thousand  persons.  Twenty  national- 
ities are  brought  together,  or  have  drifted  together,  here; 
ninety-seven  per  cent  are  of  foreign  birth  or  extraction ;  and 
about  five  per  cent  are  Protestant.  Saloons  and  vicious 
resorts  are  abundant.  This  section  was  once  respectable; 
in  recent  years  of  bad  repute  but  for  this  institution.  What 
is  its  work  ?  In  the  first  place,  it  reaches  after  the  children, 
giving  instruction  in  their  most  teachable  years  to  the  young 
people  who  have  little  or  no  home  instruction,  and  are  not 
ready  for  public  schools.  There  is  carpentry  work  for  boys, 
lessons  in  housekeeping  for  girls.  There  is  opportunity  for 
training  in  music  and  other  refinements.  There  is  a  study- 
room,  where  children  who  are  in  the  public  schools  may  have 
a  quiet  resort  to  prepare  their  lessons,  and  where  there  are 
teachers  to  help  them  in  their  problems.  A  gymnasium,  a 
club-room,  a  game-room,  are  also  provided,  so  that  recreation 
may  be  a  part  of  the  daily  life  of  these  children  who  resort 
to  this  Common  School  for  Life.  But,  above  all,  the  re- 
ligious training  of  childhood  is  not  overlooked  or  shghted. 
Children  form  the  choir  on  Sundays;  they  are  ushers  and 
take  up  the  offerings.  They  listen  to  a  real  sermon,  not 
small  talk,  or  mere  stories,  but  earnest  appeals  meant  to 
engage  their  best  thought  on  the  highest  themes.  There  is 
a  real  children's  church.  Then,  as  we  turn  to  the  work  for 
the  adult  life  of  the  South  End,  under  Morgan  Memorial  aus- 
pices, there  is  found  the  same  wise  planning  for  a  thorough- 
going regimen.  The  insistent  fact  is  always  kept  in  mind  that 
human  wrecks  are  at  the  very  doors  of  this  church,  and  the 
doors  are  open.  Rescue  work  is  the  dominating  interest  in 
the  hearts  of  those  who  are  doing  the  service  here.  The 
religious  note  is  the  deepest  in  the  message  that  Morgan 


THE  METHODISTS  283 

Memorial  is  sounding  forth  to  that  community  of  fifty 
thousand.  The  dereHct  is  warned  of  his  danger,  shown  the 
possibiUties  of  finding  a  regenerate  life;  hope  is  kindled  in 
almost  hopeless  souls,  an  atmosphere  of  sympathy,  faith, 
and  prayer  envelopes  the  poor  slave  of  appetite  and  passion, 
and  he  makes  a  start  toward  a  better  manhood  and  a  re- 
deemed life.  On  such  foundations  it  is  possible  to  build 
men  up  in  character  and  usefulness.  Safeguards  are  sup- 
plied; a  reading-room,  club-rooms,  baths  are  open  for  whole- 
some influences  to  take  the  place  of  the  old  noxious  ones. 
Then  comes  the  whole  ingenious  plan  by  which  industrial 
opportunity  is  opened  to  those  who  have  no  place  elsewhere 
to  earn  their  way.  They  are  given  a  chance.  They  are 
helped  over  a  period  of  discouragement  and  destitution. 

Morgan  Memorial  is  a  great  workshop,  as  well  as  a 
church.  Motor  trucks  are  driven  through  the  resident  dis- 
tricts of  Greater  Boston  once  a  month  to  gather  cast-off 
articles  from  a  thousand  homes  —  clothing,  shoes,  furniture, 
paper,  crockery  —  all  sorts  of  material;  and  this  vast  con- 
glomerate is  here  disinfected,  sorted,  repaired,  renewed, 
remodelled,  by  skilled  workers  in  this  great  workshop, 
and  thus  becomes  merchandise  which  at  low  prices  is  avail- 
able to  the  people  of  the  district  who  have  little  money  to 
spend,  but  are  sure  that  what  they  buy  is  worth  every  cent 
that  is  paid.  The  industrial  aspects  of  this  institution  are 
simply  the  reflection  of  that  profounder  work  that  is  going 
on  all  the  time,  as  human  life,  taken  at  its  lowest  levels  of 
moral  character  and  efficiency,  is  graciously  led  step  by 
step  up  out  of  the  "  miry  clay  "  up  to  the  clean  and  bracing 
heights  of  Christian  manhood.  The  success  of  this  remark- 
able work  of  Morgan  Memorial  in  its  recent  development  is 
due  to  the  genius  and  consecration  of  Dr.  Edgar  J.  Helms, 
whose  faith,  ingenuity,  heroic  perseverance,  and  devotion 
have  made  his  efforts  fruitful  of  such  great  results  as  appear 


284  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  the  establishment  and  progress  of  this  great  institution. 
There  will  soon  be  dedicated  a  new  building  for  worship  to 
be  known  by  the  inclusive  name  of  "  The  Church  of  All 
Nations." 

There  is  no  reason  why  such  a  general  plan  of  rescue  and 
reformatory  work  could  not  be  duplicated  in  many  cities. 
It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  section  of  any  great  city  where 
the  conditions  for  christianizing  the  social  disorder  are 
harder  than  here  in  our  own  South  End.  Dr.  Helms  has 
attacked  the  problem  with  an  undaunted  faith  that  the 
Christian  religion  can  deal  with  all  the  elements  of  the 
situation.  The  degrading  passions,  the  grovelling  appetites, 
the  loathsom^e  vices,  the  squalid  homes,  the  discouraged, 
broken-down  characters  that  otherwise  would  riot  in  their 
uncleanness  and  woe,  are  now  met  by  this  organic  power, 
wholesome,  cheering,  cleansing,  and  in  the  moral  desert  an 
oasis  appears.  I  can  only  mention  the  Medical  Mission 
maintained  since  1893  ^^  Hull  Street,  and  the  Immigrants' 
Home,  established  in  1888,  in  East  Boston;  both,  agencies 
of  untold  good. 

Methodism  is  using  active  forces  for  reaching  the  larger 
aggregates  of  the  foreign  population  in  Boston  and  other 
cities  in  New  England.  At  the  North  End  in  Boston,  a 
Mission  Church  for  ItaHans  has  been  sustained  for  many 
years.  Devoted  laymen,  as  well  as  clergymen,  have  given 
both  material  and  rehgious  help  to  this  work.  It  has  been 
found  that  a  native  Italian  could  best  lead  the  enterprise  and 
meet  the  problems  which  naturally  rise  and  tax  ingenuity 
and  faith.  A  young  man  is  now  in  charge  of  the  mission,  the 
Rev.  C.  M.  Panunzio,  who,  as  an  immigrant  boy,  struggled 
his  way  through  academy  and  college,  mastered  the  Enghsh 
language,  and  has  become  a  preacher  of  rare  ability  and 
persuasive  power.  In  Worcester,  there  is  a  large  community 
of   Swedes  who  have  become  a  self-supporting  body  of 


THE  METHODISTS  285 

Methodists,  having  their  own  Conference  organization  of 
Swedish  preachers.  In  Lowell  a  steady  work  is  going  on 
among  the  Greek  population,  which  has  become  numerous 
in  recent  years.  Thus,  at  many  points  the  aggressive  en- 
deavors of  the  denomination  are  bringing  promising  results 
for  the  cause  of  christianizing  the  masses  of  immigrants 
who  are  crowding  within  our  borders.  Single-handed  no 
denomination  can  hope  to  do  more  than  a  small  share  of 
this  work.  Here  is  a  field  for  that  cooperation  of  Christian 
forces  that  seems  possible  for  the  Federation  of  Churches 
to  accomplish.  The  Federation  in  Massachusetts  is  now 
chartered,  has  at  least  thirteen  denominations  and  two 
thousand  churches  in  its  ranks,  and  is  using  its  combined 
influence  in  support  of  desirable  legislation  against  manifest 
social  dangers.  It  is  interested  in  social  service  problems, 
in  philanthropies,  and  in  the  question  of  putting  new  life 
into  the  rural  church  and  community,  which  is  often  so 
barren  in  religious  things  as  to  be  almost  pagan.  Its  Com- 
mission for  Social  Service  was  appealed  to  by  the  last  Meth- 
odist Conference  in  Boston  "  to  make  active  efforts  for  the 
redemption  of  the  individual  and  society;  to  urge  all  pastors 
to  cooperate  with  every  agency  in  their  communities  looking 
toward  social  improvement;  to  insist  that  highest  property 
rights  and  human  rights  are  one,  and  to  get  each  community 
to  attack  in  its  own  way  whatever  problem  is  most  in  need 
of  solution." 

In  looking  back  through  the  annals  of  New  England 
Methodism,  one  is  struck  with  the  decided  change  that  has 
gradually  taken  place  in  the  institution  of  the  Camp  Meet- 
ing; for  it  was,  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, a  distinct  factor  in  the  rehgious  life  of  Methodism. 
At  Eastham,  at  Martha's  Vineyard,  at  Sterling,  and  many 
other  points  in  the  New  England  States,  the  annual  gather- 
ing in  tents  was  the  chief  religious  event  of  the  year.    Emi- 


286  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

nent  preachers  were  heard,  vigorous  appeals  were  made 
to  the  indifferent  and  the  ungodly,  crowds  flocked  to  the 
meetings,  and  many  were  led  from  darkness  to  light  by  these 
services  in  tented  groves.  But  in  recent  years  there  has  been 
a  decided  falling  off  in  attendance  upon  these  gatherings, 
and  the  emphasis  of  religious  effort  has  been  in  part  with- 
drawn from  such  occasional  and  sporadic  means  of  grace, 
and  given  rather  to  the  orderly  programme  of  rehgious 
nurture  in  the  churches,  and  the  steady  unremitting  work 
that  goes  on  without  spectacular  accompaniments. 

Methodism  has  not  been  backward  in  showing  its  interest 
in  the  great  moral  movements  which  belong  to  New  England 
history.  In  the  anti-slavery  agitation  which  culminated  in 
the  Civil  War  the  annals  of  this  denomination  show  that 
the  debates  in  conferences  and  conventions  were  of  most 
vital  character.  After  William  Lloyd  Garrison  began 
publishing  the  Liberator  in  1832,  popular  indifference  to  the 
institution  of  slavery  was  disturbed,  and  discussion  began. 
There  were  radicals  and  conservatives  on  this  question,  as 
upon  most  great  issues,  and  the  leading  preachers  of  New 
England  Methodist  churches  were  not  all  on  one  side.  It 
was  felt  by  the  radicals  that  Wesley's  denunciation  of  slavery 
was  right  when  he  called  the  slave  trade  "  the  sum  of  all 
villanies  " ;  at  any  cost,  they  said,  the  institution  of  slavery 
ought  to  be  abolished.  A  more  moderate  party,  of  which 
Wilbur  Fisk  was  a  leader,  said  that  there  were  consistent 
Christians  who  owned  slaves,  and  the  whole  question  should 
be  so  treated  that  Southern  Methodist  slaveholders  would 
not  take  offence.  The  Church,  North  and  South,  should  be 
saved  from  a  schism,  and  some  means  adopted,  if  possible, 
that  would  secure  the  final  aboHtion  of  slavery  and  also 
preserve  the  unity  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
Fisk  and  his  party  proposed  the  colonization  of  the  colored 
people;    but  this  scheme  did  not  appeal  to   the  radical 


THE  METHODISTS  287 

brethren.  In  1842  a  few  leading  radicals  withdrew  from  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  and  formed  a  new  organization, 
named  the  "  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church."  This  secession 
did  not  attract  a  large  following,  and  only  increased  the  zeal 
of  the  anti-slavery  men,  who  determined  to  debate  their 
cause  through  to  victory  within  the  ranks  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  Finally,  in  1844,  the  General  Conference 
settled  the  issue  between  the  pro-slavery  and  the  anti- 
slavery  wings  of  the  church.  The  South  demanded  that  the 
fact  of  slaveholding  should  be  no  bar  to  any  official  place  in 
the  church;  the  North  refused  this  demand.  On  this  rock 
the  split  occurred;  the  Methodist  Church,  South,  was  formed 
as  a  separate  body,  and  the  New  England  radical  leaders 
were  satisfied  that  their  cause  had  triumphed  by  this  separa- 
tion, which  relieved  the  Northern  Methodists  of  any  fellow- 
ship with  slavery.  All  through  the  ecclesiastical  struggle, 
and  beyond  that  period  to  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  the 
part  that  New  England  Methodism  took  in  the  agitation 
which  made  anti-slavery  influence  powerful  and  finally 
triumphant  was  not  uncertain  or  insignificant. 

Methodism  has  also  a  clear  record  in  another  great  moral 
interest  that  is  not  provincial,  or  sectional,  but  touches  a 
world  problem;  and  that  is  the  cause  of  temperance.  In 
this,  as  in  the  anti-slavery  cause,  the  people  of  Methodism 
are  not  united  as  to  the  best  means  of  promoting  the  cam- 
paign against  the  evils  of  strong  drink,  —  its  manufacture 
and  its  use.  Some  choose  to  be  advocates  of  Federal  pro- 
hibition, others  of  State  constitutional  prohibition,  others 
of  prohibition  by  State  legislation;  some  give  their  efforts 
to  the  Total  Abstinence  Society,  others  to  the  Anti-Saloon 
League.  There  are  advocates  of  local  option  as  the  best 
means  of  fighting  a  persistent  and  sometimes  malignant  foe. 
But  the  principle  upon  which  all  unite  is  that  the  forces  of 
intemperance  must  be  boldly  and  unflinchingly  met,  and 


288  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

finally  vanquished.  New  England  is  sorely  vexed  by  the 
demon  of  intemperance.  The  cities  are  too  often  dominated 
by  the  rum  power,  and  rural  communities  are  not  free  from 
the  blight  of  this  curse.  In  the  Methodist  Annual  Con- 
ferences, therefore,  the  theme  of  the  temperance  cause  is 
always  at  the  front,  and  renewed  devotion  is  pledged  by  the 
ministry  for  unanimous  and  increasing  efforts  to  extirpate 
this  evil  from  society. 

How  does  the  Methodist  Church  polity  answer  to  the  re- 
ligious needs  of  our  New  England  conditions  ?  This  church 
has  lived  long  enough  in  this  section  to  demonstrate  its 
modes  of  procedure,  to  give  evidence  of  its  temper  and  pur- 
poses, and  to  point  to  its  actual  successes  in  winning  its  way 
among  the  sisterhood  of  churches.  In  the  year  1800  its  New 
England  membership  numbered  nearly  5,000.  In  the  next 
thirty  years  the  total  reached  was  over  44,000;  and  in  i860 
it  was  nearly  104,000.  The  average  yearly  increase  for  the 
nineteenth  century  was  1570.  At  present,  the  aggregate 
membership  for  the  New  England  States  is  about  168,000. 
Statistics  show  that  the  increase  was  much  more  rapid  in 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  it  has  been  since 
i860.  The  great  increase  by  immigration  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
population  in  the  latter  period,  and  a  constant  decrease  of 
native  New  England  families,  may  help  to  account  for  this 
fact.  Of  all  the  bishops  elected  to  be  the  chief  officers  of  the 
denomination  from  the  beginning,  twelve  per  cent  have 
been  New  England  born.  These  things  indicate  that  the 
people  have  been  awake  to  their  opportunities,  have  sown 
beside  all  waters,  and  gathered  the  fruit  of  their  labors  in 
many  fields;  and  may  be  taken  as  witnesses  to  the  effective- 
ness of  the  special  agencies  that  Methodism  has  used. 

It  has  been  thought  by  some  interested  observers  that 
the  short  pastoral  terms,  limited  first  to  one  year,  then 


THE  METHODISTS  289 

lengthened  from  time  to  time  to  two,  three,  and  five  years, 
weakened  the  effectiveness  of  the  Methodist  ministry.  The 
time  limit  having  finally  been  removed  by  the  General  Con- 
ference, the  Methodist  pastor  may  now  hold  his  place  as 
long  as  seems  best  to  him  and  his  flock,  and  the  appointing 
power.  But,  either  from  the  general  conditions  prevailing 
among  all  denominations,  which  conditions  do  not  favor 
long  pastorates,  or  because  the  Methodist  ministry  long  ago 
formed  the  habit  of  frequent  changes,  and  the  habit  is  not 
broken,  there  are  very  few  pastoral  terms  that  extend  be- 
yond five  years.  However,  when  the  average  length  of 
pastorates  in  the  Congregational  and  Baptist  churches  in 
New  England  is  less  than  five  years,  there  seems  still  to  be 
some  justification  for  the  proposition  mentioned  in  some 
quarters  that  a  time  limit  might  be  restored.  I  have  already 
alluded  to  the  fact  that  the  early  ecclesiastical  conditions 
here,  formed  under  the  principle  of  independency  in  each 
parish,  had  a  marked  influence  upon  the  entire  rehgious  life 
of  New  England.  It  has  been  asked,  how  does  the  lack  of 
complete  independence  in  the  churches  of  the  Methodist  com- 
munion get  on  in  this  atmosphere,  among  these  traditions, 
working  alongside  of  supposedly  freer  organizations  ?  We 
answer,  the  churches  have  about  all  the  Uberty  that  they 
can  wisely  use,  and  bishops  do  not  often  venture  to  exercise 
arbitrary  power  over  the  ministers,  or  societies,  feeling  per- 
haps the  influence  of  the  general  spirit  of  independence, 
natural  to  our  democracy. 

Two  or  three  facts  may  now  be  appropriately  mentioned 
which  are  larger  than  any  provincial  interests:  for  the  con- 
nectional  forces  which  play  through  the  entire  denomination 
make  it  impossible  to  consider  any  one  section,  like  New 
England,  as  very  different  from  any  other.  And  yet  there 
is  a  distinction  that  sometimes  differentiates  one  region  of 
denominational  fife  from  another. 


290  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

1.  There  is  less  conservatism  in  New  England  than  in  the 
West,  anomalous  as  this  fact  may  appear,  since  the  general 
spirit  of  the  West  is  venturesome,  bold,  and  eager  for  new 
things.  A  common  opinion  among  New  England  Methodists , 
for  example,  is  that  our  Articles  of  Religion  are  many  of  them 
antiquated  and  quite  meaningless  to  this  generation,  having 
been  taken  largely  from  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the 
EstabHshed  Church  of  England,  which  were  formulated  in 
a  time  when  there  was  a  bitter  conflict  between  Romanism 
and  Protestantism.  The  issues  of  Christianity  are  now 
vastly  different.  New  England  has  raised  a  serious  doubt 
whether  it  is  wise  for  a  great  denomination  to  carry  from  age 
to  age,  in  its  Book  of  Disciphne,  a  set  of  creedal  statements 
which  do  not  reflect  in  the  best  way  the  fundamental  beliefs 
of  the  church  in  this  time.  Why  should  the  age  of  Henry 
VIII,  or  Edward  VI,  give  to  twentieth  century  Methodism 
its  principal  articles  of  religious  behef  ?  Some  New  England 
representative  minds  are  not  content  with  the  conservatism 
that  holds  fast  to  a  "  creed  outworn,"  or  outUved,  in  the 
progress  of  thought  and  by  the  changed  conditions  of  Chris- 
tianity. When  it  is  said  it  is  well  to  retain  some  of  the  s>Tn- 
bols  of  an  ancient  faith  which  were  beaten  into  shape  under 
fierce  and  determined  polemics,  it  may  also  be  proclaimed 
that  while  the  past  may  have  some  claim  upon  our  historic 
sense,  and  even  our  veneration,  the  insistent  hfe  of  our  own 
time  demands  that  the  statement  of  fundamental  beliefs 
be  such  as  a  child  may  comprehend,  and  worthy  of  the 
assent  of  any  modern  Christian. 

2.  It  is  often  the  case  that  the  exaggeration,  or  over- 
working, of  a  principle  in  an  organization  of  any  kind  has 
unfortunate  results  and  does  not  make  for  success.  Expan- 
sion has  been  a  principle  in  the  Ufe  of  Methodism  ever  since 
Wesley  said,  "  the  world  is  my  parish."  He  was  tireless  in 
his  purpose  to  gather  followers  in  every  quarter  of  Great 


THE  METHODISTS  29I 

Britain.  His  representatives  in  America  were  of  the  same 
spirit.  The  new  conditions  in  this  new  world  seemed  to  lend 
themselves  to  fostering  this  aggressive,  exploring,  missionary 
spirit.  But  in  New  England  there  is  a  reaction  noticeable 
which  results  from  attempts  to  expand  too  widely.  There 
have  been  too  many  feeble  societies  started  where  there  was 
no  hope  for,  and  no  need  of,  a  new  enterprise.  The  idea  of 
federation  as  a  counter  to  this  error  is  beginning  to  make 
itself  felt  in  locahties  where  expansion  would  naturally 
lead  toward  extinction.  In  the  settled  conditions  of  New 
England  the  old  methods  of  the  itinerant  clergy,  who  like 
flying  scouts  followed  up  every  highway  and  every  trail 
where  scattered  famihes  dwelt,  cannot  find  place. 

There  is  one  prominent  religious  interest  that  is  felt  very 
widely  in  the  ranks  of  modern  Protestantism,  and  is  receiving 
considerable  attention  in  the  churches  of  New  England;  that 
is,  the  great  desire  on  the  part  of  many  leaders  of  thought 
in  the  different  church  bodies  for  a  closer  bond  of  fellowship. 
"  Church  Unity,"  if  it  means  one  organic  body  that  would 
include  all  of  the  disunited  members  of  the  Protestant  family 
of  churches,  seems  to  most  men  whose  opinions  are  well 
based,  impracticable  and  Utopian.  Some  advances  may  be 
made  toward  a  more  compact  and  efficient  order  in  Protes- 
tantism. For  example,  it  is  an  anomalous  and  a  reproachful 
condition  for  Methodism  to  show,  in  its  national  statistics, 
that  there  are  sixteen  varieties  of  Methodists  in  the  United 
States.  There  are  also  fifteen  varieties  of  Baptists,  twelve 
varieties  of  Presbyterians,  twenty-one  varieties  of  Lutherans ! 
It  seems  to  some  watchmen  on  the  towers  of  New  England 
that  effective  steps  might  be  taken  in  the  direction  of  unity 
by  the  denominations  so  prolific  in  "  varieties,"  if  the  minor 
differences  that  now  mark  these  fragments  could  be  sunk 
out  of  sight  and  the  fragments  be  brought  together.  Nego- 
tiations are  now  going  on  between  the  Methodist  Episcopal 


292  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Church  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  which 
it  is  fervently  hoped  will  result  in  the  reunion  at  least  of 
these  two  bodies  separated  because  of  slavery  in  1844.  If 
the  denominations  first  mentioned  could  lead  the  way  in 
such  a  consolidation,  they  would  serve  a  great  purpose  and 
would  heal  some  of  the  divisions  in  Protestantism  which  seem 
unnecessary  and  obstructive  to  the  progress  of  our  common 
faith.  Such  movements  would  be  first  stages  in  what  might 
later  become  a  still  more  comprehensive  uniting  of  Christian 
forces;  but  there  are  no  very  significant  signs  in  our  sky 
that  there  will  be  any  speedy  working  of  a  centripetal  power 
that  will  move  all  Protestantism  toward  "  one  fold."  There 
is  a  singular  persistency  in  religious  types;  perhaps  this 
loyalty  is  a  characteristic  of  New  England  churches  espe- 
cially. Whatever  it  is  that  shapes  the  type  —  whether 
dogma,  or  ritual,  or  authority,  or  freedom;  once  the  partic- 
ular form  in  ecclesiastical  things  is  established,  or  set,  the 
tendency  is  for  that  type  to  persist. 

After  all  superficial  matters  in  Christianity  are  harmoni- 
ously settled,  the  fact  remains,  and  will  always  remain,  that 
the  deepest,  finest,  and  most  effective  elements  of  our  faith 
cannot  be  confined  to  any  sectarian  boundaries,  and  do  not 
depend  upon  the  wiping  out  of  all  confessional  distinctions. 
There  might  be  as  much  danger  of  secularizing  Christianity 
if  there  were  one  vast  Protestantism  organized  in  one  body, 
as  there  is  in  one  hundred  and  fifty  separate  religious  bodies 
that  now  exist  in  the  United  States.  The  spiritual  life  that 
should  be  common  to  Christians  of  every  name  is  the  one 
supreme  interest  that  is  immeasurably  superior  to  \isible 
or  organic  unity.  In  some  sections  of  New  England  last 
year  there  was  a  decrease  in  the  membership  of  Methodist 
churches,  in  others  an  increase  is  reported.  Numbers, 
whether  increasing  or  decreasing,  do  not  tell  the  whole  story. 
Is  life  increasing  —  the  life  of  genuine  piety,  self-forgetful, 


THE  METHODISTS  293 

generous,  dynamic  ?  Is  this  kind  increasing  in  any  fold, 
under  any  name  whatsoever  ?  Then,  if  it  is,  we  rejoice:  for 
the  Head  of  the  Church  Himself  must  rejoice.  If  we  have 
interpreted  Methodism  correctly,  this  is  its  temper  toward 
all  other  faiths  in  New  England  and  in  Christendom;  and 
it  is  also  learning  to  deal  kindly,  patiently,  helpfully  with 
the  poor,  misshapen  religions  of  paganism. 

In  the  year  1866,  the  centenary  year  for  American  Method- 
ism, a  great  Convention  met  in  Boston  composed  of  twelve 
hundred  delegates  from  all  the  New  England  States,  to 
celebrate  the  work  of  the  denomination  for  its  first  hundred 
years  in  this  nation.  Many  of  the  chief  interests  of  the 
church  were  discussed  by  leading  men.  A  stirring  service 
was  held  under  the  great  Elm  in  Boston  Common  where 
Jesse  Lee  had  preached  in  1790.  The  Convention  closed 
its  three  days'  session  by  a  thronged  Festival  in  Music  Hall. 
Bishop  Simpson,  the  preeminent  orator  of  all  Methodism 
in  that  time,  made  the  final  address.  Some  of  his  searching 
appeals  are  worth  our  attention  today.  He  said:  "Why 
this  Convention  ?  We  have  taken  each  other  by  the  hand. 
You  go  back  to  Maine,  to  Rhode  Island,  to  Vermont,  to 
New  Hampshire,  to  Connecticut,  feeling  that  you  are  mem- 
bers of  one  great  brotherhood,  cemented  together  by  the 
strongest  ties,  and  going  forth  to  work  in  harmony  with  the 
great  Christian  denominations  of  the  land,  in  bringing  this 
world  nearer  to  Christ.  This  is  the  great  work.  Let  us 
preach  the  glorious  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  as  set  forth  by 
our  fathers.  We  have  nothing  to  take  back,  nothing  to 
abate.  Wherever  we  go,  let  us  proclaim  the  glad  tidings  of 
great  joy.  ...  I  think  Methodism  has  done  much,  and  I 
rejoice;  but  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  not  accomplished. 
I  would  infuse  the  spirit  into  the  church,  if  I  could,  of 
counting  nothing  accomplished  while  anything  remains  to 
be  done.    Though  rejoicing  in  the  past,  let  us  gird  ourselves 


294  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

afresh  and  consecrate  ourselves  to  the  work  before  us. 
While  we  are  reconstructing  the  nation,  let  us  reconstruct 
society  and  bring  the  world  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross  of  Christ. 
This  is  our  great  mission,  —  God  help  us  to  perform  it." 

And  all  the  people  said,  Amen. 


VII 

THE   UNIVERSALISTS 

JOHN    COLEMAN  ADAMS 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS 

IN  the  early  days  of  the  old  Bay  Colony,  there  ran 
through  the  dense  forest  of  the  Berkshire  Hills  a  slender 
trail  from  the  bottom-lands  of  the  Connecticut  to  the  valley 
of  the  Hudson,  It  was  the  great  Indian  thoroughfare  by 
which  the  silent  bands  of  the  aborigines  on  their  war-raids 
crossed  the  ranges  that  divided  their  territories.  That  was 
the  route  followed  by  the  first  road-builders  of  the  settle- 
ments; its  grades  and  directions  guided  the  engineers  who 
staked  out  the  railway  which  still  bears  its  laden  trains  from 
east  to  west;  and  recently  a  smooth  and  durable  roadway 
has  been  constructed  for  automobiles  along  those  same  con- 
tours, by  which  hundreds  of  swift  cars  now  daily  pass  from 
valley  to  valley.  Crowds  now  travel  where  the  dusky  scout 
once  trod  a  weary  path  of  privation  and  peril.  So  the  theo- 
logical thought  of  New  England  today  easily  moves  along 
the  lines  once  traced  in  spiritual  travail  by  a  brave  and 
hardy  group  of  souls,  in  much  jeopardy  of  good  name  and 
standing.  The  earliest  of  them  are  as  shadowy  and  uncertain 
a  band  as  the  makers  of  the  Mohawk  Trail.  Who  can  tell 
the  names  of  the  first  keen-sighted  souls  alert  to  see  the 
foregleams  of  the  Larger  Faith  in  the  final  harmony  of  all 
souls  with  God  ? 

Some  think  they  discern  the  figure  in  that  paragon  of 
statesmanship  and  intellectual  chivalry.  Sir  Harry  Vane,  the 
younger,  whose  broad  and  radical  views  seem  to  have  in- 
cluded a  belief  in  the  salvation  of  all  flesh.  He  certainly 
declares  his  belief  that  the  Christ  "  is  become  the  ransom 
for  all  sinners;  and  not  for  those  only  who  so  believe  as 
that  they  shall  be  saved,  but  for  the  whole  world."    He 


298  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

were  a  worthy  forerunner  in  the  way,  and  we  may  fairly 
place  him  in  the  van.  The  early  annals  of  the  stirring  town 
of  Marblehead  record  the  daring  affirmation  of  one  Joseph 
Gatchell,  being,  as  his  contemporaries  wrote  into  the  county 
court  records,  "  instigated  of  the  divill "  to  say  that  "  he 
would  be  a  very  imperfect  Saviour  "  who  delivers  only  a 
part  of  his  people  from  hell.  Samuel  Gorton  of  Rhode 
Island,  in  1637,  dropped  a  phrase  which  has  remained  in 
the  minds  of  the  rehgious  ever  since,  when  he  declared  that 
"  there  is  no  heaven  but  in  the  hearts  of  men;  no  hell  but 
in  the  mind.''  But  the  early  voices  that  heralded  the  dawn 
of  a  new  rehgious  faith  and  spirit  were  faint  and  few  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

The  warning  notes  of  the  coming  controversy  began  to 
be  heard  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Jonathan 
May  hew  of  Boston,  breaking  with  the  theology  of  his  time 
on  the  whole  doctrinal  front,  the  Theodore  Parker  of  his 
day,  Arminian,  Liberal  Christian,  Independent,  and  Sepa- 
ratist, anticipated  the  Universalism  of  Hosea  Ballou  in 
renouncing  at  once  the  doctrines  of  the  trinity  and  of  ever- 
lasting punishment.  The  forcefulness  of  his  attack  on  the 
latter  doctrine  may  be  gauged  by  the  heat  of  his  critic  and 
assailant,  John  Cleaveland  of  Ipswich.  His  great  influence 
and  popularity  throughout  New  England  imply  a  wide- 
spread diffusion  of  his  views  and  no  small  following  in  the 
churches.  His  eminent  contemporary,  Charles  Chauncy, 
kept  Boston  astir  with  his  sermons  and  writings  in  open 
advocacy  of  the  faith  in  the  salvation  of  all  souls,  as  well  as 
of  the  divine  unity.  The  pastor  of  the  First  Church  was  an 
aggressive  Universalist  before  Murray  or  Ballou  ever 
scandalized  the  orthodoxy  of  the  town  with  their  heresies. 
Still  later  Jeremy  Belknap  added  himself  to  the  leaders  of 
what  Mr.  Cooke  graphically  styles,  "  the  silent  advance  of 
liberalism  "  in  the  centre  of  New  England's  religious  thought. 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  299 

In  Connecticut,  Joseph  Huntington,  an  eighteenth  century 
Horace  Bushnell,  born  out  of  due  time,  pubHshed  a  work 
with  the  stimulating  title  Calvinism  Improved,  whose  cir- 
culation would  have  set  many  minds  to  thinking,  had  not 
his  pious  and  evangelical  daughter  burned  up  the  greater 
part  of  the  edition.  These  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  pro- 
phetic souls  who  early  saw  the  light  of  the  Larger  Faith  and 
followed  its  leadings. 

Such  leaders  and  champions  of  a  great  idea  convey  a  hint 
of  large  defections  from  the  popular  creeds.  Such  speech 
must  have  secured  a  hearing  to  match  it.  This  probability 
is  confirmed  into  a  certainty  by  the  outcry  that  was  raised 
over  the  heresies  thus  made  public.  When  Chauncy's 
pamphlet  Salvation  for  All  Souls  appeared,  a  book  was  pub- 
lished in  Connecticut  which  was  announced  as  "  a  humble 
attempt  to  support  the  sinking  truths  of  God  against  some 
of  the  principal  errors  raging  at  this  time."  Its  preface 
spoke  of  the  "  low  state  of  religion  and  the  awful  floods  of 
error "  which  prevailed,  and  singled  out  the  prevalent 
"  Origenism  (or  the  doctrine  of  Universal  Salvation)  as 
lying  nearest  to  the  root  of  all  the  impiety  and  wickedness 
now  leading  the  fashion  in  places  of  public  resort."  Such 
expressions  of  offended  orthodoxy  do  not  necessarily  mean 
any  serious  breach  in  the  established  faith,  but  they  do  point 
to  much  theological  unrest  and  revolt.  When  John  Murray 
preached  in  Gloucester  in  1774,  he  was  surprised  to  find 
"  dwellers  in  that  remote  place  "  who  had  embraced  the 
doctrines  of  his  own  teacher,  James  ReUy.  It  was  about 
these  days  that  in  four  adjoining  towns  in  New  Hampshire 
five  pastors  of  Congregational  churches  became  Universalists, 
all  but  one  of  them  being  dismissed  for  their  heresy.  The 
marked  accessions  to  the  new  sect  of  the  Universalists  from 
the  Baptist  churches  is  another  evidence  of  the  extent  and 
the  force  of  the  revolt  from  Calvinism  unimproved. 


300  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

It  was  in  the  year  1774  that  John  Murray,  speaking  after 
the  fashion  of  this  world,  "  drifted  "  into  New  England  and 
found  his  way  to  Gloucester,  Massachusetts.  A  more  rever- 
ent description  of  his  advent  would  be  to  call  it  a  providential 
guidance.  The  story  of  this  pioneer  of  organized  Univer- 
salism  in  America  reads  like  a  spiritual  romance,  almost  a 
rescript  of  the  story  of  Jonah  the  "  prodigal  Prophet." 
Like  that  rebellious  servant  of  Jehovah,  he  was  fleeing  by 
ship  from  the  voice  of  duty  and  of  God,  in  great  inward 
depression  and  gloom,  especially  repressing  in  himself  the 
call  to  prophesy  in  the  spirit  of  the  Larger  Faith.  Like  the 
son  of  Amittai,  he  was  removed  from  his  ship  by  a  marvel 
no  less  startHng  than  the  adventure  of  the  Hebrew,  and  again 
set  face  to  face  with  his  mission  through  the  faith  of  a  simple 
man  who  persuaded  him  to  deliver  his  word  in  the  little 
church  he  had  built  in  absolute  trust  that  such  a  preacher 
would  come  to  it  as  now  appeared.  For  four  years  he  sought  in 
vain  for  any  group  of  people  who  saw  the  light  as  he  did,  until 
in  the  port  of  Gloucester  he  found  "  a  few  persons  .  .  .  upon 
whom  the  light  of  the  gospel  had  more  than  dawned."  Here 
was  organized  the  first  Universalist  Church  in  America.  It  has 
passed  through  many  vicissitudes,  many  persecutions  at  law, 
many  theological  assaults,  many  spiritual  depressions,  but  still 
lives  as  "  the  Independent  Christian  Society  of  Gloucester." 

The  bent  of  John  Murray's  mind  was  strongly  Calvinistic, 
and  was  shaped  by  the  curious  theological  scheme  set  forth 
by  James  Relly,  of  England,  in  his  book  entitled  Union, 
the  contention  of  which  was  that  all  men  have  been  brought 
into  the  favor  of  God  by  the  righteousness  of  Jesus  Christ, 
as  truly  as  if  each  one  had  suffered  and  obeyed  in  his  own 
person.  The  redemption  thus  achieved  must  be  honored  by 
the  Divine  Being,  and  therefore  the  salvation  of  the  whole 
family  of  mankind  is  assured.  Murray  was  not  an  original 
thinker;    he  originated  no  system  of  theological  thought; 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  3OI 

he  accepted  and  proclaimed  the  ideas  of  another.  This  fact 
enables  us  to  give  credit  where  credit  belongs  and  declare 
the  connection  between  James  Relly  and  the  first  organized 
attack  upon  the  intrenched  Calvinism  of  the  New  England 
churches.  James  Relly  made  John  Murray,  and  John 
Murray  made  the  beginnings  of  the  Universalist  Church  in 
America,  here  in  New  England,  on  the  rocks  of  Cape  Ann. 
The  time  was  ripe,  long  before  the  pacifist  Unitarians  in  the 
bosom  of  the  standing  order  were  ready  to  take  it  by  the 
forelock,  when  the  break  should  be  made  with  the  old  the- 
ology, and  organization  and  the  count  of  heads  be  begun, 
in  behalf  of  the  new  theology.  Such  an  hour  presented  itself 
in  the  early  church,  when  Christianity  had  to  part  from 
Judaism  or  else  atrophy  into  a  faction  of  the  mother-church. 
Such  an  hour  recurred  when  Luther  was  disfellowshipped 
and  forced  to  organize  his  protest  and  contest  its  right  to  be 
and  to  spread.  The  hour  struck  anew  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  it  found  John  Murray  and  a  handful  of  Uni- 
versalists  after  his  fashion  ready  to  stand  for  the  Larger 
Faith.  For  a  generation  before  the  Unitarians  had  found 
themselves,  the  Universalists  were  in  the  field,  organized, 
enlisted  and  doing  hot  work  in  the  firing  line  for  the  truth. 
When  the  first  rally  of  the  Unitarians  took  place  in  the  Berry 
Street  Chapel  in  1820,  this  little  band  had  been  organized 
and  growing  for  nearly  forty  years.  Their  system  has  passed ; 
but  the  harvest  from  that  seed-church  is  still  being  reaped 
throughout  New  England  and  the  whole  land.  To  Murray 
also  must  be  assigned  the  high  credit  of  striking  the  keynote 
of  modern  preaching  in  his  joyousness  and  triumphant  con- 
fidence in  the  glorious  outcome  of  the  confhct  with  sin  and 
its  sequences.  The  mood  of  modern  religious  teaching  has 
been  a  buoyant  optimism,  its  message  one  of  hope  and  faith, 
of  confidence  in  the  divine  resources,  of  belief  in  the  imper- 
manence  of  evil.    When  Murray  cried  in  the  wilderness  of 


302  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Calvinism,  his  voice  was  as  of  one  who  brought  good  tidings 
of  great  joy,  who  pubhshed  peace,  who  proclaimed,  "  Thy 
God  reigneth."  It  was  time  for  such  a  herald.  Men  were 
heart-sick  over  the  dreary  message  of  God's  wrath,  of  man's 
depravity  and  inability,  of  impending  doom  and  endless 
wreckage  and  ruin.  This  man  stood  in  the  pulpit  with  a 
heart  full  of  gladness.  With  him  came  a  new  spirit  into 
the  heart  of  American  religion. 

The  work  of  John  Murray  had  been  going  on  for  some 
thirty  years,  when  a  new  force  appeared  upon  the  field  of 
battle  for  the  Larger  Faith.  Hosea  Ballou,  coming  to  ma- 
turity, excommunicated  from  a  Baptist  Church,  joined  him- 
self to  the  Universalists,  and  in  ten  years'  time  became  the 
scarcely  questioned  leader  of  their  thinking  forces.  His 
reputation  spread  rapidly  throughout  New  England  as  a 
remarkable  preacher,  and  under  the  contagion  of  his  spirit, 
the  converts  to  the  faith  grew  rapidly.  But  more  important 
yet,  the  very  faith  itself,  under  the  lead  of  this  masterly  and 
straightforward  intellect,  was  converted  from  the  hybrid 
orthodoxy  of  Murray,  and  planted  squarely  upon  the  sound 
foundations  of  Broad  Church  theology,  where  it  has  ever 
since  rested.  Murray's  system  was  a  curious  blend  of  John 
Calvin  and  James  Relly.  It  was  orthodoxy  newly  roofed 
and  made  tenable  to  humane  and  reasonable  minds.  It  was 
an  alteration  in  the  current  theology  which  furnished  an 
excuse  for  remaining  on  the  premises.  But  Ballou,  through 
his  preaching  and  his  memorable  book,  A  Treatise  on  Atone- 
ment, opened  the  way  for  many  grateful  hearts  to  new  and 
ampler  ideals,  to  a  reasonable  and  humane  conception  of 
God  and  his  moral  purposes.  In  his  Treatise  is  the  first 
assembling  of  all  the  points  of  the  liberal  theology  of  the 
present  day,  the  anticipation  of  the  common  doctrines  from 
which,  in  later  years,  that  wonderful  trio  of  New  Englanders, 
Bushnell,  Beecher,  and  Brooks,  preached  the  old  New  Eng- 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  303 

land  theology  out  of  court.  The  claim  is  indisputable  that 
A  Treatise  on  Atonement  covers  every  point  in  the  later 
system  which  we  call  "  the  New  Theology,"  save  only  its 
view  of  the  origin  of  the  Scriptures.  It  taught  the  unchang- 
ing love  of  God  as  the  supreme  trait  in  the  godhead;  his 
eternal  fatherhood;  man's  sonship  to  God;  the  mission  of 
Jesus  as  the  reconciler  of  man  to  God;  the  certainty  of 
punishment  for  sin;  and  the  final  salvation  of  all  souls. 
Mr.  George  Wilhs  Cooke  afhrms  that  it  "  had  small  influ- 
ence on  the  current  of  religious  thinking  outside  the  Uni- 
versalist  body."  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  was  the  message  which 
reformed  the  theology  of  the  men  who  were  to  reform  the 
thought  of  the  American  Church.  Whether  direct  or  in- 
direct, its  effect  was  the  same.  It  was  the  first  book  to  out- 
line in  full  the  principles  of  the  Larger  Faith  in  America. 
It  will  yet  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  great  works  of  New 
England's  theologians. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  with  the  advent  of  Ballou  and  his 
followers  the  policy  of  the  UniversaHsts  in  New  England 
became  more  distinctly  aggressive  toward  the  ruling  forces 
in  the  church.  Hitherto  they  had  seemed  to  hope  that  they 
might  preach  their  heresy  and  at  the  same  time  retain  their 
standing  in  the  ranks  of  orthodoxy.  Like  the  Unitarians, 
whose  pacific  temper  long  deterred  them  from  an  open 
break  with  the  standing  order,  they  would  gladly  have  re- 
mained under  the  old  standards  and  maintained  the  old 
fellowship.  They  had  not  yet  realized  the  "  irrepressible 
conflict "  that  was  impending,  nor  the  implacable  hostility 
they  must  face.  The  forces  of  the  Old  Theology  were  bent 
on  war;  they  had  no  thought  or  purpose  of  compromise. 
The  new  heresy  was  "  the  abomination  of  desolation." 
The  doctrine  must  be  extirpated  and  its  adherents  plucked 
out,  root  and  branch.  There  could  be  no  concord  between 
Christ  and  Belial;    and  BeHal  must  be  cast  forth,  with  all 


304  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

his  iniquity.  The  UniversaHsts  of  New  England  were  swift 
to  recognize  the  challenge  of  opposition,  to  appreciate  its 
meaning,  and  to  rally  all  their  slender  forces  for  the  conflict. 
The  spirit  in  them  was  that  of  Captain  Parker  at  Lexington 
Green,  "  If  they  want  a  war,  let  it  begin  here."  Hence,  it 
happened  that  the  first  organized  body  in  New  England  to 
attack  the  intrenched  ecclesiastical  and  theological  forces  of 
the  majority  was  the  little  group  of  religious  societies  called 
UniversaHsts. 

Let  us  linger  a  moment  here,  in  the  interests  of  clearness 
and  historic  justice.  The  UniversaHsts  of  New  England 
chose  the  policy  of  theological  militancy  thirty  years  before 
their  later  aUies,  the  Unitarians,  were  forced  into  the  same 
attitude.  That  pohcy  included,  not  merely  the  rejection  of 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  but  the  whole  "  scheme 
of  salvation  "  as  held  by  orthodox  Christians  and  by  the 
heretical  Calvinists  who  followed  John  Murray.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  the  fact  than  the  assertion,  which 
amounts  to  a  detraction,  that  Universahsm  has  been  a 
single-track  theology,  beginning  and  ending  in  the  final 
harmony  of  all  souls  with  God.  It  is  impossible,  in  the  good 
providence  of  God,  to  put  a  copyright  or  a  patent  upon  the 
truth;  because  truth  is  the  common  right  and  possession 
of  mankind.  But  were  it  possible,  and  had  the  early  Uni- 
versaHsts of  New  England  looked  to  their  selfish  interests, 
two-thirds  of  the  Protestant  ministers  of  that  territory 
today  would  be  paying  theological  royalties  to  the  heirs  and 
assigns  of  BaUou  and  others.  After  its  restatement  by 
Hosea  BaUou,  Universahsm  in  New  England  and  elsewhere 
became  a  system,  not  a  dogma.  It  dared  deny  the  whole 
series  of  cohering  misconceptions  of  the  Gospel  which  was 
backed  by  the  popular  churches  —  the  trinity,  the  faU  of 
man,  the  total  depravity  of  the  race,  the  governmental 
theory  of  the  atonement,  salvation  by  faith  alone,  and  end- 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  305 

less  punishment.  It  is  the  senior  Unitarian  body  in  this 
country,  since,  twenty  years  before  the  Unitarians  were 
organized  for  their  splendid  campaign  of  theological  reform, 
the  Universalists  of  New  England  were  a  soHd,  aggressive 
body  committed  to  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God.  A 
whole  generation  before  Horace  Bushnell  pleaded  in  Con- 
necticut for  a  more  Christian  interpretation  of  the  Atone- 
ment, these  Universalists  were  standing  for  a  doctrine  to  all 
intents  the  same  as  his.  Seventy  years  before  Beecher  and 
Brooks  were  winning  men  to  the  modern  conception  of  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  they  were  suffering  theological  and  social 
ostracism  for  their  advocacy  of  the  same  sublime  epitome 
of  the  Gospel.  The  Unitarian  statement  of  "  The  Things 
commonly  believed  among  us"  —  originating,  I  believe,  with 
James  Freeman  Clarke  —  contains  a  fine  phrase,  "  salvation 
by  character."  That,  too,  was  a  clear  teaching  of  these 
early  prophets  of  the  Larger  Faith.  It  was  to  a  body  of 
doctrine  as  broad,  as  inclusive,  as  coherent  as  this,  that 
these  pioneers  in  the  campaign  against  Calvinism  conse- 
crated their  lives  and  all  their  powers.  It  is  an  inversion 
of  the  facts  to  call  these  people  the  narrow  partisans  of 
"  one  idea."  To  them,  as  to  their  descendants,  the  doctrine 
of  the  final  harmony  of  all  souls  with  God  was  but  the  key- 
stone of  an  indestructible  arch,  resting  on  the  one  side  upon 
the  nature  of  God  and  on  the  other  upon  the  nature  of  man. 
To  change  the  figure  and  the  point  of  view,  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  punishment  was  the  vital  salient  in  the  orthodox 
line  of  battle;  if  the  enemy's  front  were  pierced  here,  nothing 
could  save  it  from  confusion  and  defeat.  Two  great  facts 
in  theological  logistics  the  early  Universahsts  consciously 
or  unconsciously  felt  and  acted  upon.  From  the  theological 
point  of  view,  if  the  force  and  reality  of  the  dogma  of  endless 
punishment  could  be  destroyed,  all  the  associated  dogmas 
would  go  with  it;  if,  for  instance,  there  were  no  eternal  hell, 


3o6  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

why  should  there  be  any  need  of  a  substitutional  atone- 
ment ?  From  the  psychological  standpoint,  it  was  clear 
that  the  surest  and  quickest  way  to  arouse  the  interest  of 
the  average  man  was  to  hold  the  great  controversy  to  the 
point  at  which  it  bore  the  hardest  upon  himself  and  his  own 
personal  destiny.  That  they  seized  on  these  two  ideas  and 
made  them  the  basis  of  their  campaign  for  a  half  century 
proves  them  to  have  been  theological  strategists  of  the  first 
order.  Not  because  John  Murray  began  the  warfare  so,  nor 
yet  because  their  minds  were  not  large  enough  to  take  into 
account  other  and  most  vital  matters,  but  because  they  per- 
ceived that  here  was  the  most  vulnerable  point  of  the  popu- 
lar faith,  they  made  their  "  drive  "  at  it  early  and  always 
and  incessantly.  The  results  of  the  long  debate  have 
demonstrated  their  polemical  astuteness. 

For  more  than  thirty  years  after  the  landing  of  John 
Murray  the  outward  growth  of  the  Universalist  following 
was  but  meagre.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
there  were  about  thirty-five  societies  for  the  support  of  the 
faith,  mostly  in  New  England.  They  were  variously  grouped 
in  eastern  Massachusetts,  in  lower  New  Hampshire  and 
Vermont,  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  in  and  around  Provi- 
dence, and  through  the  country  regions  of  Connecticut. 
They  were  somewhat  loosely  organized  according  to  con- 
gregational usage,  exceedingly  sensitive  independencies,  too 
jealous  of  their  liberties  to  cultivate  their  unities.  In  1792 
one  of  these  societies  reported  at  a  gathering  of  the  faithful 
that  "  the  brethren  of  this  place  seem  averse  to  system,  and 
generally  walk  as  seemeth  right  to  every  man."  A  letter 
from  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  about  the  same  year  describes  in 
most  ingenuous  fashion  the  extreme  of  feeling  on  this  subject 
and  the  absurd  sequences  of  the  policy.  "  Those  at  Newport 
join  neither  with  the  world  nor  with  each  other.  They  are 
afraid  of  years  and  of  months  and  of  days;    and  to  avoid 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  307 

being  tangled  with  what  they  deem  a  yoke  of  bondage,  they 
keep  from  even  the  appearance  of  assembHng  at  any  time," 
These  were  representative  utterances  concerning  the  inde- 
pendency which  builds  its  walls  so  stout  against  authority 
that  it  shuts  out  all  the  vantage  of  fraternity.  For  the  most 
part  these  new  Separatists  kept  as  much  aloof  from  friend 
as  from  foe,  and  the  long  mistake  was  begun  of  an  extreme 
Congregationalism  which  permits  every  parish  to  do  as  it 
may  please,  with  no  reference  to  what  its  associates  are  doing 
or  desiring  to  do.  It  has  taken  a  century  to  redeem  the 
denomination  from  this  early  error,  and  the  end  is  not  yet. 
All  the  way  along  the  years  the  Universalist  Church  has  been 
handicapped  and  hindered  by  the  individualism  of  its  mem- 
bership and  the  independency  of  its  societies. 

But  the  parishes  and  preaching  stations  throughout  New 
England  multiplied  and  grew,  and  the  instinct  to  cooperate 
led  to  the  formation  of  a  few  "  associations,"  as  they  were 
called,  and  now  and  then  to  the  holding  of  a  more  important 
gathering  under  the  name  of  a  "  convention."  The  most 
memorable  and  important  of  them  was  held  at  Winchester, 
New  Hampshire,  in  1803.  It  was  composed  of  societies 
represented  by  twenty  clerical  and  twenty-two  lay  dele- 
gates. The  chief  business  of  this  convocation  and  the  work 
for  which  it  will  always  be  remembered,  was  the  adoption  of 
a  statement  of  belief,  put  forth  in  the  name  of  the  "  Churches 
and  Societies  of  Universalists  of  the  New  England  States, 
assembled  in  General  Convention." 

The  Profession  of  Belief  adopted  at  the  session  at  Win- 
chester, New  Hampshire,  a.  d.,  1803,  is  as  follows: 

Article  I.  We  believe  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  contain  a  revelation  of  the  character  of  God  and  of 
the  duty,  interest,  and  final  destination  of  mankind. 

Article  II.  We  believe  that  there  is  one  God,  whose  nature  is 
Love,  revealed  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  one  Holy  Spirit  of  Grace, 


308  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

who  will  finally  restore  the  whole  family  of  mankind  to  holiness  and 
happiness. 

Article  III.  We  believe  that  holiness  and  true  happiness  are 
inseparably  connected,  and  that  believers  ought  to  be  careful  to  main- 
tain order  and  practice  good  works;  for  these  things  are  good  and 
profitable  unto  men. 

This  was  the  famous  Profession  of  Belief,  known  as  the 
"  Winchester  Profession."  The  Profession  was  the  first 
explicit  statement  in  the  form  of  creed,  articles,  or  profession, 
of  the  great  fundamentals  of  what  has  come  to  be  known  as 
"  liberal  Christianity  "  or  "  the  new  orthodoxy  "  or  "  broad 
church  theology."  It  was  the  affirmation  of  a  body  of  men 
who  had  been  converted  from  the  Calvinism  of  Murray  to 
the  liberalism  of  Ballou.  They  were  Arminian,  Unitarian, 
Universalist.  The  preaching  and  the  influence  of  Ballou 
had  already  swung  the  majority  of  those  whom  they  repre- 
sented to  the  new  theology,  in  all  its  essentials.  The  Pro- 
fession was  the  direct  outcome  of  the  principles  which  for 
a  good  half  century  had  been  leavening  the  religious  thought 
of  the  land.  It  sounded  the  note  of  freedom  from  the  stand- 
ing order  of  the  church  and  ran  up  the  colors  of  an  independ- 
ent body,  resting  on  the  new  doctrines  affirmed.  It  is  the 
document  in  which  the  new  theology  —  the  theology  which 
starts  from  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  proceeds  consistently 
to  the  final  and  universal  harmony  of  the  moral  creation — 
was  first  set  forth  in  a  creed.  It  was  thus  at  once  the  Magna 
Charta  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  of  the  Broad 
Church  in  America.  It  was  the  assertion  of  the  fundamental 
truths  on  which  the  subscribers  planted  themselves  and  it 
was  the  proclamation  of  their  intent  to  claim  their  rights  to 
a  free  ecclesiastical  life,  in  the  service  of  those  truths.  The 
adoption  of  this  creed  was  an  event  of  the  first  importance 
in  the  religious  history  of  the  country.  For  it  definitely 
marked  the  birth  of  a  new  theology,  the  renaissance  of  the 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  309 

primal  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  the  signal  for  organi- 
zation and  for  aggression  among  the  friends  of  the  Larger 
Faith.  It  was  a  distinct  stimulus  to  the  controversy  and 
rising  temperature  which  at  length  forced  the  Berry  Street 
Conference  and  the  Unitarian  schism.  It  was  the  ensign 
of  the  vanguard  of  the  New  Theology.  It  stood  for  the 
Universal  Fatherhood  of  God;  for  man's  Sonship  to  God 
as  typified  in  Jesus  Christ ;  for  the  Atonement  as  the  recon- 
ciliation of  man  to  God;  for  the  Certainty  of  the  Penalties 
of  sin,  here  or  hereafter;  and  for  the  final  Harmony  of  all 
souls  with  God.  It  is  one  of  the  great  fundamental  docu- 
ments of  New  England's  history.  Those  whose  heritage 
includes  the  Mayflower  Compact  and  the  Connecticut 
Charter  and  Fundamental  Orders  ought  to  hold  in  equal 
esteem  and  honor  this  first  creedal  statement  of  the  organi- 
zation which  led  the  struggle  for  the  Larger  Faith  in  America. 
Let  it  be  said  at  this  point,  lest  this  claim  of  priority  in 
behalf  of  both  Hosea  Ballou  and  the  Winchester  Profession 
seem  to  savor  of  vainglory,  that  the  claim  is  made  in  the 
Commonwealth  which  prides  itself  upon  Plymouth  Rock 
and  Concord  Bridge  and  Lexington  Green  and  Old  Ironsides 
and  Harvard  University.  It  is  here  accounted  an  honor  to 
have  sprung  from  the  forerunners  of  the  world's  good,  and 
to  keep  their  memories  fresh.  It  is  still  counted  a  fine  thing 
in  New  England  to  have  inherited,  in  blood  or  in  belief  from 
the  prophets  or  from  the  prophecies  of  law  and  liberty  and 
to  remind  men  of  both.  It  is  equally  an  affair  of  filial  honor 
and  religious  loyalty  to  remind  a  forgetful  generation  of 
who  first  lifted  up  the  standards  of  the  Larger  Faith  in  this 
glorious  corner  of  the  universe,  and  the  truths  for  which 
they  stood  in  array  against  the  legions  of  a  relentless  Cal- 
vinism. As  long  as  the  sculptured  Minute  Man  challenges 
the  visitor  to  Concord  Bridge,  or  "  The  granite  spike  that's 
druv  thru  Bunker  Hill "  is  cooled  by  the  east  winds  of 


3IO  RELIGIOUS  fflSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Boston  Harbor,  so  long  you  must  bear  with  those  who  pay- 
honor  where  honor  is  due,  to  the  men  who  set  the  pace  and 
took  the  initiative  in  the  conflict  for  man's  emancipation 
from  the  tyranny  of  a  false  gospel. 

The  Winchester  Profession  still  stands  as  the  historic  and 
oflacial  statement  of  faith  of  the  Universahst  Church  in 
America.  It  was  supplemented  in  the  year  1901  by  a  state- 
ment of  the  Principles  of  Universalism  which  the  Profession 
was  held  to  contain.  This  statement  was  accompanied  by  a 
declaration  that  "  neither  this  nor  any  other  precise  form 
of  words  is  required  as  a  condition  of  fellowship,  provided 
always  that  the  principles  above  stated  be  professed."  That 
saving  clause  prevents  once  for  all  any  narrow  and  over- 
scrupulous disputes  about  particular  words  and  phrases, 
and  demands,  as  a  condition  of  fellowship,  only  a  broad  and 
reasonable  agreement  as  to  the  great  truths  held  up  as  the 
standard  of  faith  and  teaching.  Thus  the  spirit  of  the  his- 
toric Profession  is  preserved  and  a  new  and  perennial  lease 
of  life  conferred  upon  it. 

One  of  the  features  of  the  eighteenth  century  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Affairs,  was  the  long  and  stubborn  struggle  of  the  dis- 
senting sects  —  and  they  were  many  and  strange  —  to 
secure  and  maintain  their  freedom  from  the  standing  order, 
the  Congregationahsm  of  New  England.  The  compulsory 
tax  for  the  support  of  preaching  was  not  so  obnoxious  when 
all  were  of  pretty  much  the  same  theological  way  of  thinking; 
but  as  differences  arose  and  factions  separated  themselves 
from  the  established  churches,  the  injustice  of  the  enforced 
support  of  the  state's  church  and  minister,  while  maintain- 
ing reUgious  services  and  organizations  of  their  own,  became 
an  acute  issue.  Of  course  it  involved  the  Universalists. 
John  Murray's  society  in  Gloucester  became  defendants  in  a 
long  and  costly  suit  at  law,  which,  however,  in  June,  1786, 
was  decided  in  their  favor,  and  gave  them  the  right  to  their 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  3II 

own  funds  for  the  support  of  a  minister  after  their  own 
faith.  This  decision  encouraged  them  and  had  a  distinct 
bearing  on  subsequent  cases  of  the  same  type.  One  of  these 
was  the  famous  htigation  of  Christopher  Erskine  of  Clare- 
mont  in  1802,  who,  being  "  sued  for  the  non-payment  of 
Congregational  ministerial  taxes,  prayed  for  counsel."  The 
courts  gave  adverse  judgments,  but  in  1805  the  Legislature 
of  New  Hampshire  passed  a  statute  recognizing  UniversaUsts 
as  a  distinct  sect. 

It  was  for  a  long  time  held,  as  a  denominational  tradition, 
that  the  Winchester  Convention  in  1803  had  for  its  main 
purpose  the  adoption  of  such  a  form  of  church  government 
as  should  meet  the  general  doctrine  held  by  the  courts  of 
New  England,  that  however  dissenting  sects  might  differ 
from  the  standing  order  in  theological  belief,  they  could 
not  claim  exemption  from  the  tax  to  support  the  ministry 
of  the  Congregational  Church  unless  they  could  show  that 
they  held  to  a  different  form  of  organization  and  ecclesiastical 
government.  But  as  the  action  of  the  Convention  did  not 
furnish  such  a  plan,  but  left  the  churches  represented  practi- 
cally under  a  congregational  poUty;  and  as  the  adoption  of 
a  different  theological  creed  did  not,  under  these  circum- 
stances, relieve  them  from  the  claims  and  demands  of  the 
estabhshed  order,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  object  of 
the  Convention  was  rather  to  furnish  a  working  system  for 
the  good  of  the  churches  concerned,  than  to  make  a  stronger 
foundation  for  their  legal  demands  for  release  from  the 
double  support  of  religious  worship  which  the  courts  ruled 
was  their  duty.  Moreover,  the  Convention  issued  a  long 
and  expHcit  address  to  the  Universahsts  in  New  Hampshire, 
calling  upon  them  to  face  the  unfavorable  action  of  the  courts 
as  "  serious,  solemn,  and  awful  truths,"  whose  consequences 
were  bound  to  be  dangerous  and  disastrous  to  their  posses- 
sions and  their  liberty,  but  calling  upon  them  to  stand  fast 


312  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  the  faith  and  not  "  to  make  a  compact  with  iniquity." 
This  fact  conclusively  proves  that  the  Convention  itself 
looked  for  no  rehef  through  the  adoption  of  a  creed,  but 
sought  relief  from  this  crying  injustice  through  other  chan- 
nels. Help  came,  as  was  hoped,  when  the  New  Hampshire 
legislature,  by  the  special  act  referred  to,  recognized  the 
Universalists  as  a  distinct  sect  and  declared  them  entitled 
to  the  same  privileges  and  immunities  as  any  other  denomi- 
nation. Gradually  the  disestablishment  of  the  church  was 
effected  throughout  New  England,  last  of  all  in  Massachu- 
setts, in  1834,  and,  as  Williston  Walker  says,  "  New  England 
Congregationalism  reverted  to  its  original  system  of  volun- 
taryism." 

Every  rehgious  movement  is  subject  to  its  schisms,  and 
the  Universalist  body  had  its  experience  of  secession  at  a 
very  early  date.  This  episode  of  the  denominational  history 
took  place  in  New  England.  In  181 7,  a  debate  was  begun 
over  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures  concerning  the  duration 
of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked,  which  started  in  the  most 
friendly  spirit  but  led  to  heat  and  bitterness  and  culminated 
in  the  separation  of  a  number  of  ministers  and  congregations 
from  the  main  body  of  believers  in  the  final  salvation  of  all 
souls.  It  was  a  wholly  unnecessary  and  futile  discussion 
which  need  not  have  affected  the  integrity  of  the  denomina- 
tion nor  jarred  its  unanimity.  It  arose  from  a  proposition  of 
Hosea  Ballou,  then  of  Salem,  to  Edward  Turner  of  Charles- 
town,  to  discuss  with  him  the  question  whether  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  the  doctrine  of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  in 
the  future  life.  Ballou's  proposal  was  peculiar  in  his  offer 
to  take  either  side  of  the  question,  a  fact  which  indicates 
that  at  this  time  the  doctrine  of  no  future  punishment  did 
not  hold  a  very  important  place  in  his  theological  system. 
Apparently  the  purpose  was  to  engage  in  a  harmless  exer- 
cise in  polemics.    Probably,  if  the  debate  had  ended  with 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  313 

the  arguments  of  the  two  principals,  very  httle  would  have 
been  heard  of  it.  But  the  contagion  of  dispute  spread  among 
some  of  the  younger  and  less  judicious  of  the  brethren,  and 
much  mischief  ensued. 

Among  the  early  Universalists  in  America  the  doctrine  of 
a  limited  term  of  punishment  for  the  wicked  in  the  future 
was  not  questioned.  John  Murray  inherited  the  doctrine 
from  his  spiritual  father,  James  Relly.  Elhanan  Winchester 
was  of  the  same  mind,  and  was  even  ready  to  suggest  a 
matter  of  fifty  thousand  years  as  a  possible  hmit.  It  is 
admitted  that  the  Philadelphia  Articles  of  Faith,  adopted 
as  the  creed  of  the  convention  of  churches  in  1790,  had  the 
assent  and  personal  revision  of  Benjamin  Rush,  a  disciple  of 
Elhanan  Winchester.  Hosea  Ballou  himself,  in  the  earlier 
period  of  his  thinking,  made  no  objection  to  this  teaching. 
Probably  the  major  part  of  the  preachers  and  laity  of  that 
day  assumed  that  the  penalties  for  sin  held  over  into  the  life 
to  come.  About  the  year  1793,  Abel  Sargent  of  Pennsyl- 
vania became  a  vigorous  defender  of  the  doctrine  of  no 
future  punishment,  and  Caleb  Rich  of  Massachusetts,  from 
whom  Ballou  received  his  first  instruction  in  the  faith, 
"  openly  contended  that  all  the  (evil)  consequences  of  sin 
were  confined  to  the  present  hfe."  For  more  than  two 
generations  this  type  of  Universalism  waxed  stronger  and 
asserted  itself  with  great  vehemence.  It  was  wholly  aside 
from  the  main  contention  of  the  denomination  to  lay  such 
stress  upon  this  minor  point  of  theological  afiirmation. 
Ample  room  was  afforded  in  organization  and  in  creedal 
statements  for  both  parties  to  stand  together.  As  early  as 
1 79 1,  when  the  Philadelphia  Convention  was  asked  to  define 
the  position  of  the  Universalist  Church  upon  the  question 
of  future  punishment,  it  made  answer  in  this  wise: 

Unbelievers  do  die  in  their  sins;  such  will  not  be  purged  of  their 
sins  or  unbelief  by  death,  but  necessarily  must  appear  in  the  next 


314  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

state  under  all  the  darkness,  fear,  and  torment  and  conscious  guilt, 
which  is  the  natural  consequence  of  unbelief  in  the  truth.  What  may 
be  the  duration  or  degree  of  this  state  of  unbelief  and  misery,  we  know 
not.  But  this  we  know,  that  it  hath  one  uniform  and  invariable  end; 
namely,  the  good  of  the  creature. 

That  ought  to  have  been  a  broad  enough  platform  for  all 
parties.  But  there  are  certain  minds  whose  interest  centres 
in  details  and  who  insist  on  an  orthodoxy  as  inflexible  in  its 
by-laws  as  in  its  constitution.  It  was  the  men  of  this  temper 
who  swept  the  Universalist  body  away  from  its  original  and 
tolerant  position  and  committed  it  for  more  than  a  half- 
century  to  a  partisan  attitude.  Ballou  and  Turner  soon 
finished  their  dialectical  diversion.  In  the  words  of  Dr. 
Fisher,  "  The  debate  ran  on  in  the  shape  of  fourteen  letters 
that  were  published  in  the  denominational  paper,  the  Gospel 
Visitant y  Then  the  contest  closed,  not  because  either 
side  surrendered,  or  claimed  the  victory,  but  because  a 
merciful  Providence  ordained  that  the  Visitant  should  cease 
to  be  published.  But  the  dogs  of  controversial  war  were 
unleashed,  and  were  bound  to  run  their  course. 

The  most  conspicuous  leaders  in  the  long  wrangle,  both 
theological  and  ecclesiastical,  which  ensued,  were  two 
clerical  Hotspurs,  Thomas  Whittemore,  editor,  preacher, 
and  born  controversialist,  and  Adin  Ballou,  restorationist, 
abolitionist,  prohibitionist,  communist,  spiritualist,  pacifist 
—  one  of  the  most  remarkable  souls  that  New  England  has 
produced.  Others  of  weight  and  ability  ranged  themselves 
on  either  side  —  Paul  Dean,  the  assistant  of  John  Murray 
at  Boston,  Edward  Mitchell  of  New  York  City,  Edward 
Turner  of  Charleston,  one  of  the  original  disputants,  these 
standing  with  Adin  Ballou;  while  Walter  Balfour,  a  writer 
of  power  and  note,  Hosea  BaUou,  and  the  majority  of  the 
younger  men  of  the  period,  formed  the  following  of  Whitte- 
more.   The  controversy  that  ensued  was  neither  educational 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  315 

nor  edifying.  It  became  a  riot  of  newspaper  communica- 
tions and  pamphlets,  "  appeals  "  and  "  replies,"  "  inquiries  " 
and  "  declarations,"  personalities  and  recriminations,  with 
the  maximum  of  heat  and  the  minimum  of  light.  Much 
bitter  feeling  was  stirred  and  the  usual  issue  of  such  undis- 
ciplined differences  befell.  In  183 1,  a  convention  of  Restora- 
tionists  —  ministers  and  delegates  —  was  held  at  Mendon, 
Massachusetts,  and  a  separate  organization  formed  com- 
prising about  twenty  clergymen  and  an  uncertain  number  of 
laymen.  The  seceding  body  had  a  short  hfe,  and  in  1841, 
held  its  last  meeting.  The  Restorationists  as  a  sect  appear 
no  more. 

But  time  and  reason  bring  their  strange  and  unlooked-for 
revenges  and  compensations.  "  The  blood  of  the  martyrs 
is  the  seed  of  the  church,"  and  the  discomfiture  of  the 
Restorationists  in  this  campaign  was  in  a  few  short  years 
offset  by  the  swing  of  practically  the  whole  denomination 
back  to  the  original  position  of  the  founders,  until  today  the 
entire  Universalist  church  is  frankly  of  the  conviction  that 
not  only  do  we  "  get  our  punishment  as  we  go  along  "  — 
to  revive  a  theological  coUoquiahsm  of  the  former  days  —  but 
that  it  may  go  a  long  way  with  us  into  the  future. 

In  1878,  the  Universalist  ministers  of  Boston  and  vicinity, 
after  weeks  of  deliberation,  adopted  a  statement  concerning 
the  views  then  prevailing,  whose  closing  paragraphs  are  as 
true  today  as  then,  and  may  be  said  to  have  closed  for  all 
time  this  division  of  faith  in  the  church: 

In  respect  to  death,  we  believe  that  however  important  it  may  be 
in  removing  manifold  temptations  and  opening  the  way  to  a  better 
life,  and  however  like  other  great  events  it  may  profoundly  influence 
man,  it  has  no  saving  power.  Salvation,  secured  in  the  willing  mind 
by  the  agencies  of  divine  truth,  light,  and  love,  essentially  represented 
in  Christ  —  whether  effected  here  or  in  the  future  life,  is  salvation  by 
Christ,  and  gives  no  warrant  for  the  imputation  to  us  of  the  "  death 
and  glory  "  theory,  alike  repudiated  by  all. 


3l6  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Whatever  diflferences  may  exist  among  us  in  regard  to  the  future, 
none  of  us  believe  that  the  horizon  of  eternity  will  relatively,  either 
largely  or  for  a  long  time,  be  overcast  by  the  clouds  of  sin  or  punish- 
ment, and  in  coming  into  the  enjoyment  of  salvation,  whatsoever  that 
may  be,  all  the  elements  of  penitence,  forgiveness,  and  regeneration 
are  involved.  Justice  and  mercy  will  then  be  seen  to  be  entirely  at 
one,  and  God  will  be  all  in  all. 

In  justice  to  Hosea  Ballou  and  as  a  part  of  any  fair  state- 
ment of  the  theology  of  the  Universalists  of  New  England, 
it  ought  to  be  said  that  Ballou' s  views  upon  the  future  did 
not  by  any  means  form  one  of  the  cardinal  points  of  his 
theology.  He  himself  protested  against  the  prominence 
given  them,  as  well  as  against  the  misrepresentation  they 
suffered.  His  contention  was  twofold.  First,  that  punish- 
ment is  contemporaneous  with  sin,  begins  with  it,  and  con- 
tinuously accompanies  it.  Secondly,  that  the  changes  in 
the  environment  and  condition  at  death  will  so  influence  the 
soul,  as  to  overcome  its  revolt  against  the  Divine  and  bring 
it  to  a  quick  penitence.  He  would  never  admit  that  he 
beheved  death  to  be  the  saviour  of  man;  and  he  resented 
the  imputation  that  he  taught,  as  Channing  charged,  that 
death  has  power  to  purify  the  soul.  He  maintained  that 
the  only  difference  between  himself  and  other  believers  in 
the  Larger  Faith  was  a  difference  as  to  the  intensity  of  the 
means  of  grace  and  the  speed  at  which  they  would  operate. 
To  put  the  whole  matter  in  a  word,  Ballou  seems  to  have 
conceived  of  the  beginnings  of  the  life  after  death  as  resem- 
bling a  continuous  revival  season,  whose  tense  conditions 
and  impressive  experiences  could  not  fail  to  change  wholly 
the  temper  of  the  sinner  and  to  overcome  the  perversions 
of  his  will.  In  the  words  of  his  biographer,  Dr.  Safford, 
"  he  believed  that  the  soul  on  arriving  at  immortality,  with 
earthly  and  sinful  desires  all  gone,  will  immediately  behold 
such  heavenly  illumination  as  will  cause  a  glad  forgetfulness 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  317 

of  the  things  behind  and  a  pressing  forward  to  the  things 
before.  This  result  of  glorious  salvation,  however,  he  be- 
lieved would  be  effected  by  no  arbitrary  means  or  inter- 
ference with  the  individuality  or  the  free  choice  of  the  souls, 
but  by  the  moral  power  of  the  Father's  all-conquering  love." 
It  is  no  easy  task  to  set  forth  the  traits  of  one's  ancestors 
either  in  the  flesh  or  in  the  faith.  But  so  much  miscon- 
ception and  distortion  of  the  character  and  spirit  of  the 
Universalists  of  New  England  has  controlled,  almost  un- 
questioned, the  popular  mind,  that  the  estimate  of  sym- 
pathy and  a  common  point  of  view  will  do  no  harm.  It 
was  inevitable  that  the  heretics  from  the  ancient  faith  should 
suffer  aspersion  at  the  hands  of  those  whose  cherished  dog- 
mas they  dared  to  doubt.  It  was  equally  certain  that  the 
early  attitude  of  those  whom  they  opposed  determined  the 
kind  of  warfare  which  was  adopted.  Theological  heresy  was 
still  counted  one  of  the  cardinal  sins,  when  the  pious  people 
of  Gloucester  proposed  to  run  John  Murray  out  of  town. 
Plainly,  if  the  Universalist  were  to  exist  at  all  socially  or 
ecclesiastically,  he  must  stand  up  in  his  own  defence.  He 
must  become  a  militant.  This  was  the  more  imperative  in 
the  case  of  the  plain  man  of  the  people,  such  as  most  of  the 
Universalists  were.  He  who  has  little  wealth,  small  political 
influence,  scant  education,  no  assured  social  standing,  if  he 
becomes  a  heretic,  must  look  to  his  fighting  abilities.  He 
shall  have  use  for  them.  Here  was  a  reason  why  the  Uni- 
versalist and  Unitarian  temper  and  policies  in  the  advance- 
ment of  the  truths  they  held  in  common,  varied  so  widely. 
The  former  were  liable  to  social  ostracism  and  to  business 
hardships  on  account  of  their  opinions.  They  were  branded 
as  atheists  and  travellers  toward  the  pit.  It  was  deemed 
disreputable  to  attend  their  meetings  or  to  read  their  books. 
Their  services  were  obstructed  and  their  characters  assailed. 
Little  wonder  that  their  resentment  was  roused  and  the 


3l8  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

sense  of  injustice  intensified  their  hostility  toward  the  system 
they  were  opposing.  Their  Unitarian  allies,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  secure  in  their  social  position,  were  reassured  by 
the  culture  and  learning  of  the  clergy  who  led  them  and  the 
influential  laymen  who  gave  weight  to  their  movement. 
With  no  social  or  business  handicaps,  nor  any  serious  rupture 
with  old  conditions,  the  Unitarian  temper  was  less  heated 
in  controversy,  less  aggressive  in  pohcy.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  Unitarian  of  the  early  century  preferred  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  men  and  churches  from  whom  he  was  sundered 
by  all  his  theological  convictions,  but  who  were  his  social 
intimates,  co-graduates  of  Harvard  and  Yale,  and  fellow- 
members  of  the  bar,  the  bench,  and  the  board  of  trade,  to 
afloliation  with  the  people  who  stood  next  to  him  in  religious 
conviction.  This  condition  was  also  one  of  the  reasons  why 
there  was  so  little  cooperation  between  the  two  bodies. 
The  difiiculty  was  more  social  than  anything  else.  The  old 
New  England  of  the  post-revolution  days  had  a  good  deal 
of  the  caste  spirit  still  surviving  from  the  colonial  times. 

Another  of  the  effects  of  the  policy,  aggressive  and  rebel- 
lious, of  the  new  sect,  was  to  attract  to  its  ranks  all  classes 
and  conditions  of  ethical  and  religious  malcontents,  a  host  of 
those  who  had  any  grievance  against  the  established  churches, 
and  make  the  denominational  standards  a  rallying-point  for 
whatever  was  anti-orthodox.  These  recruits  brought  no 
sympathy  with  the  deep  religious  spirit  of  the  new  faith, 
they  had  no  share  in  its  spiritual  aspirations  or  observances. 
They  throve  on  the  air  of  controversy  and  when  they  betook 
themselves  to  the  pages  of  the  Scriptures,  they  opened  them 
only  to  bring  forth  chapter  and  verse  that  should  confute 
and  confound  him  that  was  of  the  opposite  part.  Many  of 
the  societies  which  they  formed  were  hardly  more  than  theo- 
logical clubs,  to  afford  a  hearing  for  ministers  whose  sole 
function  was  to  batter  at  the  walls  of  the  Calvinistic  Bastile. 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  319 

That  New  England  Universalism  was  able  to  purge  itself 
of  these  unwholesome  and  unwelcome  elements  was  proof 
of  its  essential  soundness  and  spirituality.  But  their  indif- 
ference to  the  deeper  religious  implications  of  the  faith,  their 
aversion  to  the  emotional  elements  and  factors  of  the  re- 
ligious nature,  their  failure  to  grasp  the  new  motive  to 
missions  which  so  far  transcended  the  older,  —  all  these 
limitations  and  defects  constituted  a  serious  hindrance  to 
the  right  development  of  the  spirit  of  the  founders  and  real 
prophets  of  the  church. 

For  from  the  beginning  until  now,  the  heart  of  New  Eng- 
land Universalism  has  been  aglow  with  a  true  reUgious  Hfe. 
The  genius  of  that  crusade  against  the  theology  of  decrees, 
depravity  and  damnation,  has  always  been  rehgious.  It 
has  kept  to  the  road  in  which  it  was  started  by  the  perfervid 
Murray  and  the  devout  and  reverent  Ballou.  Despite  the 
shortcomings  of  those  who  allied  themselves  with  it  for 
nothing  but  the  fight  against  orthodoxy,  it  has  kept  faith 
with  the  fathers  in  the  maintenance  of  its  Christian  standing 
and  spirit  and  expression.  It  has  grown  in  grace  and  in  the 
knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ;  it  has 
patiently  sought  the  profounder  meanings  of  its  own  high 
calling;  it  has  learned  its  own  relation  to  world-evangeUza- 
tion;  it  has  striven  against  the  tides  of  a  material  age  to  a 
more  prayerful  and  spiritual  temper  and  consecration;  it 
has  trained  its  young  life  in  personal  loyalty  to  the  Christ; 
it  has  responded  almost  as  a  unit  to  every  real  reform;  it 
has  been  quick  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  the  new  call  upon 
the  churches  to  champion  the  great  social  ideals  which  shall 
recognize  the  common  origin,  the  common  interests,  the 
common  destiny  of  the  whole  human  race.  Its  faith  has 
been  more  than  a  theological  idea.  It  has  been  vitalized 
by  godly  living.  Its  record  has  been  more  than  a  history 
of  controversy.    It  is  a  sum  of  saintly  lives.    Every  church 


320  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

that  bears  its  name  has  its  separate  roster,  and  from  the  Httle 
shrines  in  the  hill- towns  of  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont 
to  the  great  churches  in  the  metropolitan  centres,  there  are 
memorials  of  these  saints  of  the  new  and  Larger  Faith,  the 
apostles  of  the  rising  truth.  They  are  its  epistle,  known  and 
read  of  all  men,  bearing  witness  to  the  steadfastness  with 
which  the  church  of  their  love  and  loyalty  has  grown  from 
the  principles  of  the  fathers  to  the  fuller  interpretation  of 
the  sons. 

Of  the  outcome  of  this  century  of  debate  and  controversy, 
it  remains  to  be  said  that  it  gives  these  heirs  of  the  men  who 
are  responsible  for  it  nothing  but  solemn  satisfaction  and  a 
deep  gratitude  to  God.  It  has  been  the  privilege  of  our  time 
to  see  the  great  contentions  of  these  reformers  finding  ac- 
ceptance among  the  thinking  people  of  all  sects  and  denomi- 
nations. The  harsher  doctrines  of  election  and  reprobation, 
of  infant  damnation,  of  total  depravity  and  the  judicial 
theory  of  atonement  have  generally  been  repudiated  and 
are  no  longer  recognized  as  entitled  to  a  place  in  a  reputable 
modern  creed.  Multitudes  have  come  to  hold  the  doctrine 
of  the  trinity  in  a  fashion  so  vague  as  to  be  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishable, save  in  its  phrasing,  from  Unitarianism.  Dr. 
Chapin  used  to  declare  that  the  modern  doctrine  of  endless 
punishment  bore  the  same  relation  to  the  old  dogma  as  a 
harmless  domestic  cat  to  the  aboriginal  tiger.  The  whole 
religious  chmate  has  been  so  modified  that  the  harsher  dog- 
mas can  no  longer  live  in  New  England.  As  a  necessary  re- 
sult of  this  evolution  of  theological  sentiment,  it  has  come 
to  pass  that  those  who  have  striven  for  this  new  status  are 
no  longer  the  objects  of  persecution,  hardly  even  of  suspicion. 
Universalism  has  served  its  apprenticeship  as  a  heresy,  and 
now  finds  itself  in  good  standing  among  the  acceptable  inter- 
pretations of  the  Gospel.  Each  in  its  turn  the  several  churches 
have  outlived  the  stigma  of  heterodoxy  and  achieved  the 


THE  UNIVERSALISTS  321 

standing  of  orthodoxy,  and  now  it  is  the  turn  of  the  Larger 
Faith.  The  spirit  of  the  new  times  is  upon  us  all.  The 
passing  of  the  old  bitterness,  the  softening  of  theological 
asperities,  the  advent  of  the  day  of  fellowship  and  of  co- 
operation, have  abated  the  old  animosities,  and  replaced 
them  with  a  finer  spirit  of  tolerance.  For  the  generous  share 
which  this  church  has  had  in  the  glorious  consummation, 
we  who  are  its  sons  are  proud  and  grateful.  We  can  devoutly 
say,  as  we  survey  the  past  out  of  which  we  have  come,  and 
look  into  the  future  which  invites  us,  "  These  all  having 
obtained  a  good  report  through  faith  received  not  the  prom- 
ises, God  having  provided  some  better  thing  for  us,  that  they 
without  us  might  not  be  made  perfect." 

What  those  better  things  may  be  no  man  can  prophesy. 
But  they  are  certain  to  include  the  merging  of  effort  in  the 
new  issues  which  challenge  all  Christian  men,  and  the  sub- 
merging of  old  differences,  which  grow  less  and  less  as  the 
larger  temper  pervades  the  life  of  society.  It  does  not  need 
to  imply  the  loss  of  identity,  nor  the  weakening  of  loyalty 
to  the  standards  about  which  cluster  the  hallowed  memories 
of  a  great  conflict  for  the  freedom  and  the  joy  of  a  nobler 
faith.  If  with  the  lapse  of  time  something  of  the  old  dis- 
tinctiveness must  also  pass  away,  it  will  only  be  as  the  old 
New  England  characteristics  have  been  lost  through  their 
wider  diffusion  and  assimilation  over  a  wider  area  and 
through  a  vaster  constituency.  New  England  has  escaped 
from  its  corner  and  pervaded  the  half  of  a  continent;  Uni- 
versalism  has  overflowed  its  denominational  dykes,  and  now 
irrigates  the  sentiment  of  all  the  churches.  What  crops 
shall  be  harvested  from  the  new  soil  we  know  not.  The 
future,  like  the  past,  is  with  God. 


VIII 
THE  SWEDENBORGIANS 

WILLIAM  L.  WORCESTER 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS 

THE  beginning  of  the  New  Church  (commonly  known  as 
Swedenborgian)  in  America  is  associated  in  an  interest- 
ing way  with  the  founding  of  the  nation.  The  Rev.  Jacob 
Duche,  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  rector  of 
Christ  Church  in  Philadelphia,  has  been  called  the  first 
New  Churchman  in  America.  When  the  Continental  Con- 
gress first  met  in  1774,  Duche  was  called  to  conduct  an 
opening  service  and  to  make  the  first  prayer  in  Congress. 
John  Adams  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  wrote  of  the  great  appro- 
priateness of  the  Scripture  that  was  read,  and  of  the  fervor 
and  ardor,  the  earnestness  and  pathos  and  eloquence,  of  the 
prayer,  in  which  Duche  prayed  for  America,  for  Congress, 
for  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  especially  for 
Boston,  of  whose  bombardment  they  had  heard  on  the 
previous  morning.^ 

The  same  Jacob  Duche  was  instrumental  in  planting  the 
New  Church  in  New  England.  Living  for  a  time  in  practical 
banishment  in  England,  "  not  being  willing,"  so  the  record 
reads,  "  to  go  all  lengths  with  the  Revolutionists,"  he  there 
interested  the  Rev.  William  Hill  in  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Church,  and  this  man  made  two  visits  to  America,  in  1794 

^  It  is  probable  that  the  Rev.  Jacob  Duche  must  yield  the  distinction  of  having 
been  the  first  to  advocate  publicly  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  in  America,  to 
James  Glenn,  of  whom  we  shall  presently  speak.  There  is  evidence  that  before 
his  departure  for  England,  in  1777,  Mr.  Duche  had  in  his  library  a  set  of  Sweden- 
borg's  works  in  Latin;  but  the  first  direct  evidence  of  his  being  acquainted  with 
the  contents  of  the  volumes  is  during  the  early  part  of  his  stay  in  England.  Mr. " 
Duche  returned  to  America  in  1790,  but  in  the  meantime  James  Glenn  had  visited 
the  country  in  1784,  and  given  public  lectures  on  the  doctrines.  See  Rev.  Jacob 
Duch6,  D.  D.,  by  William  B.  Hayden,  New  Jerusalem  Magazine,  Vol.  XXXVIII, 
pp.  496,  561,  615;  also  The  Rev.  Jacob  Duche,  by  Charles  Higham,  New- 
Church  Review,  Vol.  XXII,  pp.  210,  404. 

32s 


326  RELIGIOUS  mSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  1796,  for  the  sake  of  spreading  a  knowledge  of  the  doc- 
trines, the  second  time  remaining  permanently  in  this 
country.  Mr.  Hill  is  described  to  us  by  a  lady  whom  I  well 
remember.^  She  met  him  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Andrew 
Craigie,  in  Cambridge,  now  known  as  the  Longfellow  house, 
Mr.  Craigie  being  one  of  those  who  became  interested  in  the 
new  teachings.  It  appears  that  Mr.  Hill  had  a  special  desire 
to  find  a  reception  for  the  New  Church  at  Harvard  College, 
and  he  gave  to  the  College  Library  Swedenborg's  Arcana 
Coelestia,  in  eight  large  Latin  volumes,  and  perhaps  other 
works  of  Swedenborg.  These  books,  about  twenty  years 
later,  were  the  means  of  awakening  the  interest  that  Mr. 
Hill  had  hoped  for.  A  group  of  strong  men  in  the  class  of 
1 8 18,  with  others  who  were  in  college  at  the  same  time, 
became  interested  in  the  doctrines  through  the  books  given 
by  Mr.  Hill,  and  were  among  the  founders  of  the  organized 
New  Church  in  New  England. 

One  of  this  group  of  students  was  Thomas  Worcester, 
whose  father,  Noah  Worcester,  had  broken  away  from  Cal- 
vinism, and  had  already  exerted  an  influence  upon  religious 
thought  in  New  England  by  his  liberal  views  as  published 
in  his  Bible  News  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  as 
first  editor  of  the  liberal  magazine,  The  Christian  Disciple. 
Noah  Worcester  is  even  better  known  for  his  tract,  A  Solemn 
Review  of  the  Custom  of  War,  which  is  still  in  active  service, 
and  for  his  pioneer  labors  in  the  cause  of  peace.  Thomas 
Worcester,  son  of  Noah,  had  learned  of  Swedenborg's  works 
through  an  older  brother,  Samuel,  and  had  heard  also  of  the 
Arcana  Coelestia  given  by  Mr.  Hill  to  the  College  Library;  and 
in  18 16,  he  returned  to  college  as  a  junior,  with  the  purpose 
of  finding  and  reading  the  work.  I  quote  his  own  account 
of  his  experience  in  finding  the  books: 

*  Early  Recollections  of  the  New  Church  in  Boston,  by  Miss  Margaret  G.  Gary, 
New  Jerusalem  Magazine,  Vol.  XXX,  p.  391. 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  327 

Upon  my  return  to  college,  after  I  had  begun  to  read  Swedenborg, 
I  went  to  the  library  the  second  time  to  see  if  I  could  find  any  of  his 
works.  The  librarian  looked  into  the  catalogue  again,  and  found  the 
alcove  and  shelves  where  they  ought  to  have  been,  but  they  were  not 
there.  Then  we  began  a  thorough  search.  We  looked  through  the 
whole  Hbrary,  in  place  and  out  of  place,  but  could  not  find  them. 
Then  we  began  to  think  of  other  rooms.  At  that  time  the  Ubrary  was 
in  the  second  story  of  the  west  end  of  Harvard  Hall.  In  the  east  end 
was  a  large  room,  called  the  "  Philosophical  Room,"  and  between 
this  room  and  the  library  was  a  small  room,  which  for  want  of  a  better 
name  was  called  the  "  Museum."  It  was  filled  with  rubbish,  old 
curiosities,  cast  o£F,  superseded,  and  obsolete  philosophical  apparatus, 
and  so  forth,  all  covered  with  dust.  We  could  see  no  reason  for  hunting 
here,  except  that  we  had  hunted  everywhere  else,  without  finding 
what  we  wanted.  There  was  a  long  table  in  the  room.  Upon  it,  and 
under  it,  were  piles  of  useless  articles;  and  beyond  it  were  shelves 
against  the  wall,  where  various  things  were  stored  away.  On  the  under 
shelf,  as  far  out  of  sight  as  possible,  I  saw  some  books.  I  told  the 
librarian,  and  he  went  round  and  worked  his  way  until  he  got  at  them, 
and  found  that  the  large  books  were  volumes  of  the  Arcana  Coelestia. 
There  were  also  several  other  works  of  Swedenborg,  all  of  them 
covered  with  dust.  I  immediately  got  an  order  from  President  Kirk- 
land,  giving  me  authority  to  take  the  books  and  keep  them  in  my 
room;  and  this  I  did  for  the  rest  of  my  college  life.  By  what  means 
or  for  what  purpose  these  "  Heavenly  Doctrines  "  were  cast  out 
of  the  library  of  Harvard  College  must  be  left  to  conjecture.  Of 
the  fifty  thousand  or  sixty  thousand  volumes  then  belonging 
to  the  library,  these  were  the  only  ones  that  were  treated  in 
this  manner.  The  fact  seems  to  represent  the  state  of  the  New 
Church  at  that  time  {Biography  of  Thomas  Worcester,  by  Sampson 
Reed,  pp.  17,  18). 

The  group  of  Harvard  students  who  became  interested 
in  the  New  Church  through  these  volumes  rescued  from 
oblivion  in  the  College  Library  were  Thomas  Worcester, 
J.  H.  Wilkins,  Warren  Goddard,  William  Parsons,  and 
Sampson  Reed,  all  of  the  class  of  18 18;  Theophilus  Parsons 
(later  Dane  Professor  of  Law  in  the  Harvard  Law  School), 
Caleb  Reed,  T.  B.  Hayward,  John  Angier,  Nathaniel  Hobart, 


328  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF    NEW  ENGLAND 

and  T.  G.  Worcester,  students  in  the  classes  of  1815,  '17, 
'20,  '21,  and  '23. 

But  earlier  than  this  awakening  of  interest  among  Har- 
vard students,  there  had  been  a  beginning  of  interest  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  New  Church  among  a  few  men  and  women 
in  Boston,  strengthened  by  the  influence  of  Mr.  Hill,  but 
dating  from  a  few  public  lectures  given  in  Boston  in  1784 
by  James  Glenn,  a  Scotchman,  who  has  already  been  referred 
to  as  probably  the  first  to  advocate  publicly  the  doctrines 
of  the  New  Church  in  America.  Mr.  Glenn  also  lectured 
in  Philadelphia,  and  sowed  seeds  of  the  New  Church  among 
the  native  Indians  in  Demerara,  British  Guiana,  seeds 
which  are  still  growing  and  bearing  fruit.  The  few  interested 
persons  in  Boston  began  in  181 7  to  meet  regularly  for  read- 
ing and  study  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Church;  and  this  little  group,  soon  strengthened  by  the 
Harvard  students,  became  the  nucleus  of  the  Boston  Society 
of  the  New  Jerusalem,  which  was  organized  August  15,  18 18, 
and  incorporated  by  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  in 
February,  1823  —  the  first  organized  body  of  the  New 
Jerusalem  in  New  England.  Societies  had  already  been 
organized  in  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati,  and  New 
York. 

It  is  perhaps  impossible  for  us  in  this  day  of  freedom  and 
tolerance  to  realize  fully  the  difficulties  within  and  without 
which  beset  these  pioneers  of  the  New  Church  a  hundred 
years  ago.  In  part  their  hardships  were  the  same  that  were 
experienced  by  the  early  Universalists  and  Unitarians,  who 
rebelled  against  the  standing  order,  and  were  at  that  time 
waging  war  with  the  Calvinism  so  strongly  intrenched  in 
New  England.  Equally  with  these  liberals,  the  New  Church 
was  at  war  with  the  old-fashioned  Calvinism  and  its  doc- 
trines of  predestination,  vicarious  atonement,  and  salvation 
by  faith  alone.    But  on  the  other  hand  it  was  almost  equally 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  329 

at  variance  with  the  Uberal  bodies.  Its  position  was  lonely 
in  the  extreme,  —  a  mere  handful  of  people,  commonly 
regarded  with  suspicion,  misunderstood,  treated  with  con- 
tempt and  ridicule,  in  not  a  few  cases  cut  off  from  associa- 
tion with  relatives  and  former  friends.  Thomas  Worcester 
once  told  me  that  in  the  early  days  of  his  ministry  in  Boston 
there  was  hardly  a  respectable  minister  in  the  city  who  dared 
to  be  civil  to  him.  And  when  a  school  was  opened  for  the 
children  of  the  church,  it  was  in  part  to  protect  the  children 
from  the  treatment  which  they  received  in  other  schools. 
Yet  it  was  not  altogether  fear  of  personal  rebuff  which  led 
the  first  members  of  the  New  Church  in  Boston  to  meet 
privately,  and  a  little  later,  when  services  were  established, 
to  question  seriously  whether  to  invite  the  public  to  their 
meetings.  They  could  not  bear  to  see  things,  which  to  them 
were  sacred  and  more  dear  than  hfe  itself,  subjected  to  ridi- 
cule. It  is  recorded  that  at  one  of  the  religious  meetings,  a 
Christmas  service,  shortly  before  the  organization  of  the 
Society,  the  little  group  were  so  disturbed  by  the  presence 
of  a  single  stranger,  Miss  Hannah  Adams,  who  came  evi- 
dently out  of  curiosity,  that  they  could  not  carry  out  the 
exercises  as  planned,  and  limited  the  service  to  a  Scripture 
reading.^  If  it  is  true,  as  is  often  charged,  that  the  members 
of  the  New  Church  are  backward  in  announcing  the  doc- 
trines which  they  hold,  in  pubHc  and  in  private,  it  may  be 
in  part  a  natural  consequence  of  the  conditions  which  sur- 
rounded them  two  generations  ago.  They  may  have  kept 
a  certain  reserve  and  timidity  after  the  cause  for  it  has 
passed. 

This  is  not  the  whole  story;  there  is  a  brighter,  happier 
side  to  the  picture;  and  as  an  early  instance  of  friendliness 
to  the  New  Church,  let  us  record  at  once  that  at  the  first 

1  Address  before  Boston  Society,  by  Sampson  Reed,  New  Jerusalem  Maga- 
zine, December,  1837. 


'/ 


330  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

observance  of  the  Communion  by  the  Society  after  its 
organization,  in  1818,  the  plate  for  the  service  was  lent 
them  from  King's  Chapel.^ 

Before  going  forward  with  our  narrative,  it  seems  neces- 
sary to  describe  briefly  the  writings  of  Swedenborg  and  the 
doctrines  there  set  forth,  which  appealed  to  a  few  persons 
with  such  convincing  power  and  were  so  earnestly  condemned 
and  feared  by  others.  We  need  to  know  what  the  New 
Church  represents  in  order  to  understand  its  relation  to  the 
religious  thought  and  life  of  New  England  a  hundred  years 
ago  and  since  that  time. 

Emanuel  Swedenborg  lived  and  wrote  in  Stockholm, 
Sweden,  during  the  provincial  period  of  New  England.  He 
was  born  in  1688,  and  died  in  1772.  He  is  best  known  as  a 
man  of  science  and  a  philosopher,  the  last  few  years  having 
witnessed  a  marked  revival  of  interest  in  the  man  and  his 
science,  which  is  finding  expression  in  the  pubHcation  of  a 
new  and  sumptuous  edition  of  his  scientific  works  by  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  of  Sweden.  If  you  glance  at 
the  volumes  written  by  Swedenborg,  as  they  stand  on  the 
shelves  of  a  library,  you  are  amazed  at  their  amount  and 
the  industry  which  could  have  produced  them.  If  you 
arrange  the  volumes  chronologically,  you  note  an  interesting 
sequence  in  the  work.  The  earlier  books  are  scientific  and 
philosophical.  The  first  of  these  deal  with  mathematics  and 
the  mineral  kingdom.  Large  volumes  treat  of  the  mining 
and  smelting  of  copper  and  iron;  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  Swedenborg's  official  position  was  that  of  Assessor  in 
the  College  of  Mines,  a  member  of  the  committee  in  charge 
of  the  mining  interests  of  Sweden.  Other  volumes  deal  with 
the  origin  of  forms  and  forces.  It  is  here,  in  his  Principia, 
that  Swedenborg  announces  his  theory  of  the  nebular  origin 

^  Reminiscences  of  the  New  Church  in  Boston,  by  H.  G.  Foster,  New 
Jerusalem  Magazine,  Vol.  XXXI,  p.  i6i. 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  33 1 

of  the  solar  system,  similar  to  the  theory  of  Kant  and 
Laplace,  but  antedating  the  announcement  of  the  theory 
by  Kant  by  twenty-one  years  and  the  announcement  by 
Laplace  by  sixty-two  years.  During  this  period  of  interest 
in  mechanics  and  abstract  science,  Swedenborg  amused  him- 
self with  many  inventions.  A  list  of  inventions  in  a  letter 
of  1 7 14,  includes  several  which  have  a  decidedly  modern 
sound;  a  submarine,  a  machine  gun,  a  mechanical  musical 
instrument,  a  flying  machine,  and  a  method  of  ascertaining 
the  desires  and  affections  of  the  minds  of  men  by  analysis. 

Glancing  along  the  row  of  volumes,  we  pass  from  me- 
chanics and  metallurgy  to  the  study  of  the  human  body, 
undertaken  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  coming  through 
knowledge  of  the  body  to  knowledge  of  the  soul.  To  this 
group  of  books  belong  seven  or  eight  volumes,  representing 
thorough  study  of  the  physical  organs  and  functions,  and 
especially  of  the  brain.  In  these  volumes  discoveries  of 
modern  science  are  anticipated,  not  always  proved,  by  the 
modern  laboratory  method,  but  stated  confidently  on  ra- 
tional grounds.  The  discussion  passes  over  the  border  from 
physiology  to  psychology,  showing  the  author's  eagerness 
to  be  reaching  the  knowledge  of  the  soul  to  which  the  whole 
work  was  directed.  Here  also  he  demonstrates  that  the  way 
of  advance  in  knowledge  from  the  physical  to  the  spiritual 
is  by  recognition  of  the  correspondence  between  higher  and 
lower  forms  of  life,  and  of  influx  from  the  higher  into  the 
lower.  The  divine  Word,  though  beyond  and  above  the 
range  of  study  yet  attempted,  is  referred  to  with  reverence 
and  almost  with  awe,  as  the  divine  statement  of  the  true 
order  of  social  life  and  individual  life  which  is  reflected  in 
the  order  and  the  unity  of  mutual  service  ruling  in  the 
physical  body. 

Swedenborg  had  now  come  as  near  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
soul  as  he  could  come  from  the  side  of  natural  science.    There 


332  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

followed  a  short  transition  period  in  which  he  was  preparing 
with  all  thoroughness  for  study  of  God's  Word;  and  then 
with  a  clear  conviction  that  he  was  called  by  the  Lord  to 
renounce  all  worldly  ambitions  and  to  apply  himself  to  this 
sacred  task,  he  began  his  great  Bible  studies.  The  first  of 
these  that  Swedenborg  himself  published  was  the  Arcana 
Coelestia,  a  study  of  Genesis  and  Exodus.  He  was  engaged 
upon  this  work  eight  years,  and  published  it  in  as  many  vol- 
umes. Later  he  made  two  studies  of  the  Book  of  Revelation, 
only  one  of  which  he  himself  published.  These  Bible  studies, 
made  as  Swedenborg  himself  believed  under  special  illumi- 
nation from  the  Lord,  constitute  the  larger  part  of  his  theo- 
logical work.  The  order  of  the  divine  life  and  the  true  order 
of  human  life  unfolded  to  him  in  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
nature  of  this  order,  was  made  more  clear  by  conscious  asso- 
ciation with  angels  and  with  the  order  of  heaven  in  which 
they  live.  As  the  study  of  the  Lord's  Word  advanced,  the 
principles  of  this  true  order,  this  true  Christian  life,  grew 
clear,  and  crystallized  out  in  short  doctrinal  works.  A  group 
of  such  works  follows  each  of  the  great  Bible  studies.  After 
the  Arcana  Coelestia,  were  written  and  published  Heaven  and 
Hell,  The  New  Jerusalem  and  Us  Heavenly  Doctrines,  The 
Last  Judgment,  and  some  smaller  works.  After  the  first 
study  of  the  Book  of  Revelation  were  written  The  Doctrine 
of 'the  Lord,  The  Doctrine  of  the  Sacred  Scripture,  The  Doctrine 
of  Life,  The  Doctrine  of  Faith,  The  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 
dom, The  Divine  Providence,  The  Doctrine  of  Charity,  with 
several  smaller  works;  and  later  followed  Conjugial  Love, 
and  finally  a  gathering  up  of  doctrine  in  systematic  form  in 
The  True  Christian  Religion.  Let  it  be  remembered  —  a 
fact  demonstrated  by  the  order  and  relation  of  the  books  — 
that  Swedenborg's  theological  work  was  a  work  of  Scripture 
exposition,  and  that  the  doctrines  which  he  advanced  crys- 
tallized  out  of  the  study  of  the  Bible.     And  this  accords 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  333 

with  his  own  declaration  that  nothing  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Church  was  given  him  by  any  angel,  but  by  the  Lord 
alone,  while  he  read  the  Word.^ 

It  is  necessary  further  to  state  briefly  the  doctrines  which 
Swedenborg  taught  from  the  Word,  and  which  were  seeking 
a  home  in  the  rehgious  atmosphere  of  New  England.  The 
essential  doctrines  are  sometimes  stated  by  Swedenborg  as 
two;  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Lord,  and  a  life  of  charity, 
which  is  a  life  of  obedience  to  the  Ten  Commandments; 
and  sometimes  as  three  (subdividing  one  head  of  the  briefer 
statement) :  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Lord,  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  holiness  of  the  Word,  and  the  life  of  charity. 
A  few  words  in  explanation  of  each  of  these  three  heads. 

By  acknowledgment  of  the  Lord,  Swedenborg  means  the 
recognition  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  God  with  us;  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  mind  as  the  nature  of  the  Lord  and 
his  relation  to  us  is  rationally  explained,  and  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  heart  as  his  presence  and  saving  power  are  ex- 
perienced in  life.  From  the  day  when  the  God  of  infinite 
love  made  men,  he  had  revealed  himself  to  them  according 
to  their  need;  and  when  men  were  so  far  under  the  power 
of  evil  that  only  the  immediate  divine  presence  could  stem 
the  tide,  he  came  to  them.  The  Gospel  account  of  his 
coming  is  accepted  as  literally  true.  The  divine  life  breathed 
upon  the  virgin  mother  and  took  to  itself  from  her,  and  so 
from  the  human  race,  a  nature  like  their  own.  In  this 
nature  God  could  be  with  men  where  they  were;  that  nature 
could  be  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are.  In  temptations 
more  grievous  than  we  can  know,  he  overcame  every  form 
of  evil,  and  extends  his  saving  power  to  us.  This  was 
redemption.  The  work  that  he  did  for  all  mankind  we  see 
in  miniature  in  that  scene  on  the  shore  of  Galilee,  when  the 
Lord  cast  out  the  devils  from  the  man  possessed,  so  fierce 

^  True  Christian  Religion,  No.  779. 


334  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

that  no  man  could  bind  or  tame  him,  and  he  was  found 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind.  It 
is  a  picture  of  the  redemption  wrought  for  all  mankind. 
Men  were  free,  with  his  help,  to  live  well  if  they  would. 

But  what  did  it  amount  to,  if  the  Saviour  presently  went 
away  and  left  mankind  as  helpless  as  before  ?  He  did  not 
go  away:  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,"  was  his  promise. 
By  the  Lord's  combats  with  evil  and  his  victories,  his  human 
nature  was  glorified,  to  use  his  own  word.  All  that  was  im- 
perfect, all  that  was  finite  and  limiting  in  his  humanity  was 
gradually  removed,  replaced  by  the  divine,  till  in  him  dwelt 
all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  It  is  to  this  human 
nature  glorified  that  Swedenborg  applies  the  name,  the 
Divine  Human.  In  Jesus  Christ  glorified  is  the  trinity  of 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  The  acknowledgment  of  the 
Lord  is  the  recognition  of  this  very  present  Helper,  and 
dependence  upon  him  in  meeting  the  temptations  and  the 
duties  and  pleasures  of  every  day. 

By  acknowledgment  of  the  holiness  of  the  Word,  Sweden- 
borg means  the  recognition  that  the  Sacred  Scripture  is 
divine  and  is  the  means,  as  we  read  it  reverently,  of  holding 
us  in  the  divine  light  and  power.  The  divineness  of  the 
Word  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  it  is  historically  true 
in  every  statement  of  history  or  of  science,  nor  ideal  in  every 
moral  precept;  many  things  in  the  letter  of  the  Word,  like 
the  language  in  which  it  is  written,  were  taken  from  the  im- 
perfect minds  of  men,  else  it  could  not  have  been  received 
and  preserved  by  them;  but  the  Word  is  divine  because 
everywhere  within  the  letter  which  killeth  is  the  Spirit  which 
giveth  life.  Everywhere  in  the  Word,  even  in  every  line, 
there  is  deeper  meaning  relating  to  the  spiritual  life  of  every 
man,  and  inmostly  to  the  Lord.  Incidents  of  the  Scripture 
narrative  are  local  and  temporary  in  form,  but  they  are 
universal  in  their  deeper  meaning,  applying  to  all  men,  in 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  335 

all  places,  at  all  times.  Some  precepts  of  the  Word  may  in 
their  Hteral  form  become  obsolete,  but  they  are  in  their 
deeper  meaning  forever  true  and  full  of  divine  life  and  power. 
"  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away  (human  states  and  condi- 
tions are  forever  changing) ,  but  my  Word  shall  not  pass  away. ' ' 

The  key  to  the  deeper  meanings  of  the  Word  is  given  by 
Swedenborg  in  the  science  of  correspondences,  which  he 
foreshadowed  in  his  philosophical  works;  a  science  as  broad 
as  natural  science  itself,  for  it  studies  all  natural  things  to 
recognize  the  human  and  divine  forces  which  they  embody 
and  express.  The  study  puts  one  in  sympathy  with  the  wise 
ancients,  who  read  deep  lessons  of  life  in  nature  and  who 
spoke  and  taught  in  parables.  Applied  to  the  Scriptures, 
it  shows  them  to  be  divine  parable,  containing  exhaustless 
lessons  of  divine  and  human  life. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  doctrine  of  the  infinite  life  and 
spirit  within  the  letter  of  the  Word  gives  a  new  test  by  which 
to  determine  the  canon  of  Scripture.  Certain  books  com- 
monly included  in  the  canon,  notably  the  Proverbs  and  Job 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  Acts  and  Epistles  in  the  New, 
as  judged  by  this  test  cannot  be  regarded  as  strictly  of  the 
Lord's  Word.  Questioned  by  friends  about  the  writings  of 
the  apostles  and  Paul,  Swedenborg  replied  that  they  are 
good  books  for  the  church,  insisting  upon  the  doctrine  of 
charity  and  its  faith  as  strongly  as  the  Lord  Himself  has 
done  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Book  of  Revelation;  that  it 
was  necessary  that  doctrinal  matters  should  be  presented  in 
the  direct  manner  of  the  Epistles,  but  that  they  are  written 
in  a  different  style  from  the  Word,  and  have  not  the  infinite 
depth  of  meaning.  Swedenborg  often  quotes  Paul  in  support 
of  points  of  doctrine.^ 

Finally,  the  third  head  of  Christian  faith  declared  by 
Swedenborg  to  be  essential:    the  life  of  charity,  or  what  is 

1  Letter  to  Dr.  Beyer.    Documents,  No.  224, 


336  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  same,  a  life  of  obedience  to  the  Ten  Commandments, 
recognized  as  laws  of  God.  The  meaning  is,  that  Christian 
Hfe  consists  in  repenting  of  evils  and  desisting  from  evils, 
which  are  forbidden  by  the  Commandments,  and  this  not 
merely  from  policy  or  because  common  opinion  or  civil  law 
requires  it,  but  in  obedience  to  God,  and  in  rehance  on  his 
help,  and  then  in  doing  good  for  his  sake.  This  motive  in 
resisting  evil  and  doing  good  is  the  only  motive  which  goes 
to  the  root  of  the  matter,  removing  not  only  the  wrong  ac- 
tions but  the  desire  and  the  thought  of  evil:  this  motive 
alone  can  do  good  works  which  are  free  from  the  defiling 
spirit  of  self-trust  and  pride. 

These,  in  the  briefest  possible  phrase,  are  the  doctrines 
which  crystallized  out  of  Swedenborg's  Bible  studies,  and 
were  presented  by  him,  with  proofs  from  Scripture  and  from 
reason  in  his  doctrinal  works.  This  statement  seemed  neces- 
sary to  enable  us  to  understand  the  relation  of  the  New 
Church  to  its  environment  in  New  England  a  hundred 
years  ago,  and  its  relation  to  the  changes  of  religious  atmos- 
phere in  New  England  since  that  time. 

Thus  prepared,  we  go  back  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Boston  Society  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  in  1818.  Thomas 
Worcester  was  at  that  time  chosen  reader:  he  was  ordained 
as  pastor  of  the  Society  in  1828,  and  held  the  position  till 
1867,  a  period  of  service  of  nearly  fifty  years.  In  1859,  the 
Rev.  James  Reed  became  assistant  minister  of  the  Society, 
and  is  its  pastor  still,  his  term  of  service  now  covering  fifty- 
seven  years.  Since  1902,  Mr.  Reed  has  been  assisted  by  the 
Rev.  H.  Clinton  Hay,  as  associate  pastor.  The  long  pas- 
torates well  illustrate  the  even  tenor  of  the  way  which  the 
Society  has  followed.  It  met  in  several  halls  for  a  time 
and  built  its  present  church  on  Bowdoin  Street  in  1844-45. 
The  membership  of  the  Boston  Society  is  now  reported  as 
four  hundred  and  seventy-three.    It  must  be  remembered 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  337 

also  that  several  societies  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston  are 
in  fact  ofifshoots  of  the  church  in  Boston.  This  is  true  of 
the  societies  in  Waltham,  Newtonville,  Brookline,  Roxbury, 
and  Cambridge,  which  now  have  an  aggregate  membership 
about  equal  to  that  of  the  parent  society.  Societies  of  the 
New  Church  also  exist  in  nine  other  Massachusetts  towns: 
Abington,  Bridgewater,  Brockton,  Elmwood,  Fall  River, 
Lancaster,  Mansfield,  Springfield,  and  Yarmouthport.  These 
Massachusetts  societies,  together  with  societies  in  Provi- 
dence, R.  L,  and  in  Manchester  and  Contoocook,  N.  H.,  are 
united  as  the  Massachusetts  Association  of  the  New  Church, 
and  this  Association  joins  other  Associations  in  other  parts  of 
the  country  and  Canada  to  form  the  General  Convention  of 
the  New  Jerusalem  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  speak  briefly  of  the  origin  of  the 
group  of  societies  in  Abington,  Bridgewater,  Brockton,  and 
Elmwood,  for  these  all  owe  their  beginning  to  the  influence 
of  one  man,  the  Rev.  Holland  Weeks.  Mr.  Weeks  was 
pastor  of  the  First  Church  of  Christ,  in  Abington,  an  able 
Congregational  minister.  About  18 18,  at  the  time  the  soci- 
ety was  formed  in  Boston,  Mr.  Weeks  became  interested 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  and  preached  them. 
He  was  soon  called  to  account,  and  was  tried  by  a  council 
of  churches  in  1820.  The  council  found  that  Mr.  Weeks 
did  not  hold  the  generally  received  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body,  but  believed  in  an  immediate  spiritual 
resurrection;  that  he  did  not  hold  the  doctrine  of  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead,  nor  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the 
atonement,  but  believed  in  a  Trinity  subsisting  in  Him, 
"  in  whom  dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  "; 
that  he  held  that  all  prayer  should  be  directed  to  Christ  as 
God,  clothed  in  a  divine  body  and  a  human  form;  that  he 
believed  that  as  "  the  earth  abideth  forever,"  the  sun  and 
moon  will  continue  to  rise  and  set,  as  they  do  now,  to  all 


338  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

eternity;  Mr.  Weeks  had  replied  to  the  charge  on  this 
point  simply  in  the  words  of  Ecclesiastes,  "  I  believe  that 
'  one  generation  passeth  away,  and  another  generation 
cometh;  but  the  earth  abideth  forever '" ;  that  he  had  read 
Swedenborg's  treatise  on  sexual  evils,  in  connection  with  the 
preceding  treatise  on  conjugial  love,  and  found  nothing  in 
it  which,  as  he  understood  it,  he  disapproved;  he  found  the 
teaching  to  exalt  conjugial  love  as  eminently  pure  and  holy 
and  to  condemn  the  evils. 

Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  the  charge  of  teaching  a  doc- 
trine leading  away  from  the  purity  of  marriage,  which  was 
made  with  other  charges  against  Mr.  Weeks,  and  which  has 
occasionally  been  made  against  the  New  Church,  rests  on 
the  grossest  misunderstanding  of  its  teaching.  I  believe 
that  there  is  not  in  the  world  a  doctrine  which  exalts  the 
purity  and  sanctity  of  marriage  as  does  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Church;  or  which  shows  so  clearly  the  evilness  of  all 
impurity  of  act  or  thought  or  feeling;  or  which  leads  so 
directly  to  the  divine  help  needed  to  live  up  to  this  high 
standard.  This  I  solemnly  affirm,  and  I  should  not  fear  to 
maintain  it  before  any  fair-minded  tribunal. 

The  council  in  Mr.  Weeks's  case  further  contended,  at 
length,  in  its  report  that  it  is  unreasonable  to  ask  men  to  give 
serious  attention  to  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg,  when  their 
authority  has  not  been  attested  by  convincing  signs.  Mr. 
Weeks  was  dismissed  from  the  Congregational  Church.  The 
interest  awakened  by  him  gave  rise,  as  stated,  to  four  New- 
Church  Societies  in  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Weeks  entered 
the  ministry  of  the  New  Church,  founding  societies  in 
Detroit,  Mich.,  and  Henderson,  N.  Y.,  and  did  missionary- 
service,  frequently,  as  the  record  states,  addressing  audiences 
of  twelve  hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  persons. 

The  Weeks  trial  has  a  broader  interest,  as  illustrating  the 
attitude  of  New  England  Calvinism  toward  the  doctrines 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  339 

of  the  New  Church  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  editorial 
comment  of  the  Boston  Recorder  of  September  2,  1820,  in 
printing  the  account  of  the  trial  is  possibly  a  still  truer  re- 
flection of  popular  opinion.  It  refers  to  the  strenuous  efforts 
made  in  various  sections  of  the  country  to  give  currency  to 
Swedenborgianism.  "  Not  that  we  much  fear,"  says  the 
editorial,  "  the  extensive  prevalence  of  a  system  so  much 
better  suited  to  the  age  of  darkness  long  since  past  than  the 
present."  Grouping  Swedenborgianism  with  Socinianism 
and  Universalism,  the  editorial  adds,  "  It  becomes  us  to 
weep  rather  than  smile  at  aberrations  of  mind  which  involve 
consequences  so  tremendous  to  the  individuals  given  up  to 
those  strong  delusions  —  so  injurious  to  the  honor  of  Chris- 
tianity —  so  fatal  to  thousands  who  find  in  the  divisions  of 
Christians  an  argument  against  the  reality  of  religion  itself." 
It  should  be  said,  that  both  the  report  of  the  council  and 
the  editorial  are  kind  in  their  personal  references  to  Mr. 
Weeks.^ 

We  may  put  with  the  Weeks  trial  one  other  case,  that  of  the 
Rev.  Baman  N.  Stone  and  the  Society  of  Fryeburg,  Maine, 
and  this  at  a  much  later  date,  in  1877.  The  doctrines  of  the 
New  Church  were  first  made  known  in  Maine  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  William  Jenks,  a  Congregational  minister  in  Bath.  Seven 
years  later  another  advocate  appeared  in  Gardiner,  whose 
interest  had  been  awakened  through  the  Rev.  William  Hill, 
who  gave  the  books  of  Swedenborg  to  Harvard  College. 
Societies  were  formed  in  Bath  and  Gardiner,  that  in  Bath 
developing  considerable  strength.  In  1840,  the  Rev.  Samuel 
F.  Dike  became  pastor,  and  continued  so  for  fifty  years,  a 
man  of  deep  scholarship,  and  widely  known  and  widely  in- 
fluential, especially  in  connection  with  educational  institu- 
tions of  the  State.  In  1836  a  society  of  the  New  Church 
was  organized  in  Portland,  and  in  1878  a  society  in  Fryeburg. 

1  See  account  of  the  Weeks  trial,  in  New  Jerusalem  Messenger  of  May  21, 1884. 


340  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  experience  in  Fryeburg  was  in  some  respects  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  experience  of  the  Rev.  Holland  Weeks  in  Abing- 
ton.  "  On  the  22d  of  April,  1877,"  to  quote  the  records  of 
the  Fryeburg  Society,  "  Rev.  Baman  N.  Stone,  who  for  three 
years  had  been  the  settled  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church,  made  public  acknowledgment  that,  for  several 
years,  he  had  been  reading  the  works  of  Emanuel  Sweden- 
borg,  and  after  much  earnest  study  had  now  come  to  a  full 
acceptance  of  their  doctrines  and  claims.  At  the  same  time 
he  read  a  letter  resigning  his  pastorate.  The  Mutual  Coun- 
cil, which  was  accordingly  called.  May  2d,  unanimously 
advised  the  immediate  dissolution  of  the  pastoral  relation. 
Among  other  things  in  the  '  Result,'  it  was  declared:  '  We 
desire  also  to  express,  as  representing  the  Congregational 
body,  our  utter  and  absolute  dissent  from  the  views  of 
Swedenborg,  and  that  we  hold  in  common  with  all  religious 
sects  that  it  is  a  fatal  error;  and  further  that  we  beheve 
that  the  Word  of  God  is  given  to  men  in  a  form  and  in  a 
language  which  can  be  understood  by  the  use  of  ordinary 
human  study  and  by  the  ordinary  human  mind  without  the 
teachings  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  but  by  the  illumination 
of  the  Spirit  promised  to  accompany  the  Word.'  " 

Mr.  Stone  withdrew,  but  was  soon  recalled  to  Fryeburg 
to  become  the  pastor  of  a  new  society,  which  became  a 
regular  society  of  the  New  Church. 

If  these  cases  are  taken  as  illustrating  the  attitude  of 
New  England  Calvinism  toward  the  New  Church,  it  should 
be  noted  first  of  all  that  Mr.  Weeks,  and  Mr.  Stone,  and  Mr. 
Jenks,  the  pioneer  of  the  New  Church  in  Maine,  who  ac- 
cepted the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  were  Congregational 
ministers.  But  the  council  in  each  case  represented  the 
old-fashioned  Calvinism  which  recognized  the  New  Church 
as  absolutely  opposed  to  its  fundamental  doctrine  of  the 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  34I 

vicarious  atonement  and  salvation  by  faith  alone,  and  to 
other  doctrines  which  made  one  with  this. 

In  what  relation,  on  the  other  hand,  did  the  New  Church 
find  itself  with  the  liberal  thought  active  and  growing  in 
New  England,  represented  by  the  Universalists  and  Uni- 
tarians ?  I  have  said  that  the  New  Church  found  hardly 
more  in  common  with  the  liberals  than  with  the  orthodox, 
which  made  their  position  extremely  lonely  —  a  mere  hand- 
ful of  people  holding  to  a  great  idea.  The  New  Church  and 
the  liberals  were  at  one  in  opposing  the  tri-personal  idea  of 
God  and  the  vicarious  atonement,  but  they  looked  in  quite 
different,  if  not  opposite,  directions  for  the  religion  which 
should  take  the  place  of  Calvinism.  The  difference  was 
essentially  this:  the  liberals  felt  a  new  light  shining,  a  new 
air  blowing,  and  they  sought  for  new  and  rational  interpre- 
tations of  Christian  faith  and  experience.  With  them  it 
was  to  be  an  evolution.  They  knew  not  whither  they  were 
going,  but  they  trusted  to  the  power  of  human  reason  to 
lead  them  to  safe  harbors.  The  New  Church  believed  that 
all  real  advance  in  spiritual  life  draws  its  vitality  from  reve- 
lation, and  that  the  province  of  reason  is  to  receive  revela- 
tion understandingly,  to  confirm  it  and  apply  it.  It  believed 
that  God  had  revealed  in  his  Word,  and  in  the  opening  of 
his  Word  through  Swedenborg,  the  ideal  toward  which  men 
should  be  living;  toward  which  all  his  providence  is  tending; 
which  will  be  realized  as  men  cooperate  with  him.  This 
opening  of  the  Word  they  beheved  to  be  the  promised  second 
coming  of  the  Lord;  and  the  church  to  grow  from  this 
revealing  they  believed  to  be  the  New  Jerusalem  promised 
in  the  closing  pages  of  the  Scripture. 

Liberal  thought  was  not  attracted  by  these  claims;  its 
trend  was  away  from  acknowledgment  of  the  sole  divinity 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  the  acknowledgment  of  the 


342  RELIGIOUS  mSTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

supreme  holiness  of  the  Word,  which  were  vital  doctrines 
with  the  New  Church.  There  was,  too,  a  definiteness  and 
positiveness,  a  tone  of  finaUty,  about  the  New-Church 
teachings  which  was  not  pleasing.  To  use  the  figure  of  a 
dearly  loved  leader  in  the  religious  life  of  New  England, 
Philhps  Brooks,  he  preferred  the  breaking  light  of  dawn  to 
the  full  blaze  of  day.  There  is  a  truth  here,  and  a  lesson 
for  the  New  Church  to  learn;  but  it  is  an  error  to  suppose 
that  the  acceptance  of  a  definite  ideal  and  of  clear-cut  doc- 
trines kills  imagination  and  robs  life  of  its  charm  and  in- 
spiration. It  is  far  otherwise  if  the  ideal  is  a  divine  ideal; 
then  each  truth  learned  invites  to  a  thousand  more;  the 
wonder  and  the  mystery  grow.  It  is  so  in  the  study  and 
practice  of  a  natural  science;  it  is  no  less  so  in  learning  and 
living  the  truth  of  heavenly  life. 

Perhaps  the  relation  of  liberal  New  England  thought  to 
the  New  Church  is  best  seen  in  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  and 
the  group  of  theologians,  preachers,  and  literary  people  in 
and  around  Boston  of  whom  he  was  the  central  figure,  a 
group  in  which  we  may  include  Theodore  Parker,  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  and  other  dis- 
tinguished men  and  women.  These  liberal  minds  were  in 
touch  with  the  group  of  Harvard  students  already  mentioned 
who  became  devout  members  of  the  New  Church.  There 
was  a  close  and  lasting  friendship  between  Emerson  and 
Sampson  Reed.  Swedenborg  in  their  time  was  a  frequent 
topic  of  conversation  in  social  and  literary  circles;  lectures 
were  given  to  acquaint  the  public  with  him;  magazine 
articles  and  books  appeared,  to  interpret,  to  expound,  and 
to  refute  his  views.  There  are  many  and  extended  refer- 
ences to  Swedenborg  in  the  essays  and  letters  of  these  leaders 
of  liberal  thought  showing  the  admiration  and  the  hesita- 
tion felt  toward  Swedenborg  and  his  teachings.  The  hesi- 
tation and  the  disagreement  on  vital  points  is  impHed  in 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  343 

the  fact  that  these  men  did  not  identify  themselves  with  the 
New  Church.  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  quote  very  briefly  a 
few  of  their  more  favorable  expressions.  This  from  Theo- 
dore Parker,  in  a  letter  to  Albert  Sanford,  in  1853: 

Swedenborg  has  had  the  fate  to  be  worshipped  as  a  half-god,  on 
the  one  side;  and  on  the  other  to  be  despised  and  laughed  at.  It 
seems  to  me  that  he  was  a  man  of  genius,  of  wide  learning,  of  deep 
and  genuine  piety.  .  .  .  The  Swedenborgians  have  a  calm  and  re- 
ligious beauty  in  their  lives  which  is  much  to  be  admired.^ 

It  is  hard  to  quote  briefly  from  James  Freeman  Clarke. 
In  his  essay  on  "The  Use  of  Time"  he  names  Swedenborg 
with  Voltaire,  Wesley,  and  Franklin,  and  says: 

Perhaps  no  four  men  of  the  century  exercised  a  greater  influence 
on  the  age  than  these.  Swedenborg's  thought  has  been  slowly  filter- 
ing into  philosophy  and  theology,  spiritualizing  both.  .  .  .  His 
thought,  so  subtle  and  so  deep,  is  gradually  conquering  the  materialism 
of  philosophy  and  theology,  and  so  bringing  down  what  he  called  the 
New  Jerusalem  .2 

Edward  Everett  Hale  in  a  lecture  said: 

Swedenborgianism  has  done  the  liberating  work  of  the  last  century. 
.  .  .  The  wave  which  Swedenborg  started  lasts  to  this  day.  .  .  . 
The  statements  of  Swedenborg's  religious  works  have  revolutionized 
theology.' 

Emerson's  essay  on  Swedenborg,  in  his  Representative 
Men,  written  partly  in  high  commendation  and  partly  in 
disparagement  is  perhaps  too  weU  known  to  be  quoted;  it 
also  needs  to  be  read  entire  to  be  fairly  estimated.  Emerson 
valued  highly  the  httle  book  Observations  on  the  Growth  of 
the  Mind,  by  his  friend  Sampson  Reed.    He  sent  a  copy  of 

1  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Theodore  Parker,  by  John  Weiss,  New  York, 
1864,  vol.  I,  p.  356. 

^  Self-Culture,  by  James  Freeman  Clarke,  Boston,  1882,  pp.  76-82. 

^  Life  and  Mission  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  Benjamin  Worcester,  Boston, 
1883,  p.  416,  and  letter  from  Mr.  Hale  to  the  Rev.  Clarence  Lathbury  in  regard  to 
the  same,  May  21,  1909. 


344  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  book  to  Carlyle,  and  later  in  response  to  Carlyle's  curi- 
osity respecting  the  author  and  his  church,  he  wrote  with 
mingled  praise  and  ridicule  of  the  Swedenborgians,  and 
concludes:  "  They  are  to  me,  however,  deeply  interesting 
as  a  sect  which  I  think  must  contribute  more  than  all  other 
sects  to  the  new  faith  which  must  rise  out  of  all."  ^ 

Such  expressions  may  help  us  to  complete  our  picture  of 
the  little  band  of  New  Churchmen  in  New  England,  between 
Calvinism  on  the  one  hand  and  liberalism  on  the  other.  It 
remains  to  speak  briefly  of  the  work  done  by  the  New- 
Church  body,  the  use  made  of  its  opportunity.  We  remem- 
ber at  the  same  time  that  there  have  always  been  an  indefi- 
nite but  considerable  number  of  the  followers  of  Swedenborg 
who  have  remained  in  their  former  church  relations  and 
have  not  favored  separate  organization.  Among  these  have 
been  some  of  the  deepest  students  and  ablest  expounders 
of  the  doctrines,  notably  the  Rev.  John  Clowes,  rector  of 
St.  John's  Church,  Manchester,  England.  The  work  of  the 
organized  New  Church  is  all  that  can  be  definitely  reported. 
Even  this  is  made  more  difficult  by  the  fact  that  the  constit- 
uency is  greatly  scattered,  a  few  in  almost  every  town, 
nowhere  many.  In  New  England  the  organization  counts 
today  but  twenty-two  societies  with  a  membership  of  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty. 

This  little  body  have  sought  to  extend  the  influence  of  the 
truth  which  is  so  precious  to  them  by  public  worship,  by 
schools  conducted  under  the  care  of  the  church,  and  by  the 
pubHcation  and  distribution  of  the  works  of  Swedenborg  and 
other  New-Church  books.  A  school  for  children  of  the  New 
Church  was  opened  in  Boston  in  1836  and  continued  a  little 
more  than  seven  years.  In  1857  the  New-Church  Institute 
of  Education  was  chartered,  and  in  1864  this  corporation 
assumed  charge  of  a  New-Church  school  already  established 

•  Correspondence  of  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  letter  of  November,  1834. 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  345 

(in  i860)  in  Waltham.  The  Waltham  School  has  been  at- 
tended by  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
pupils.  The  New-Church  Theological  School,  founded  by 
the  General  Convention  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  —  one  of 
two  New-Church  Theological  Schools  in  America,  and  one 
of  three  in  the  world,  —  has  been  located  in  Massachusetts, 
at  first  in  Waltham,  then  in  Boston,  and,  since  1889,  in 
Cambridge.  One  hundred  and  thirty-six  students  have  at- 
tended the  Theological  School.  At  present,  ten  are  in  attend- 
ance, from  our  own  and  several  foreign  countries,  and  about 
one  hundred  persons  are  pursuing  some  study  with  the  school 
by  correspondence. 

The  strongest  centres  in  this  country  for  the  printing  and 
distributing  of  New-Church  literature  have  been  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia.  From  these  two  centres,  aside  from 
sales,  approximately  seven  hundred  thousand  volumes  of 
Swedenborg  have  been  given,  either  free  or  on  payment  of 
postage,  to  libraries  and  to  ministers,  and  countless  smaller 
publications  have  been  distributed.  New  England  has  also 
done  work  in  printing  and  distributing.  The  New  Jerusalem 
Magazine  was  estabHshed  in  Boston  in  1827,  and,  with  two 
interruptions,  has  continued  to  the  present  time,  under  the 
names  of  New  Jerusalem  Magazine,  New-Church  Magazine, 
and  New-Church  Review.  The  Review  is  now  published  by 
the  Massachusetts  New-Church  Union,  which  maintains  a 
bookstore  at  134  Bowdoin  Street.  For  two  different  periods 
a  children's  New-Church  magazine  has  also  been  published. 
The  publication  of  Swedenborg  in  Boston  was  begun  in  1794, 
the  year  of  Mr.  HiU's  first  visit,  and  by  various  agencies 
probably  one  hundred  thousand  volumes  of  Swedenborg  in 
substantial  form  and  two  hundred  thousand  in  cheap  paper 
editions  have  been  issued  from  Boston.  The  fifty  members 
of  the  New  Church  in  Connecticut  have  also  carried  on  an 
extensive  distribution. 


346  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

What  has  been  the  result  of  these  efforts  to  extend  a 
knowledge  of  the  New  Church,  and  to  awaken  an  interest 
in  its  doctrines  ?  The  Lord  alone  knows.  The  opinions 
quoted  above  from  James  Freeman  Clarke  and  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  that  Swedenborg's  thought  has  been  spirit- 
ualizing both  philosophy  and  religion;  that  Swedenborgian- 
ism  has  done  the  liberating  work  of  the  last  century,  and 
that  the  statements  of  Swedenborg's  religious  works  have 
revolutionized  theology,  if  they  refer  to  effects  consciously 
derived  from  Swedenborg,  are  doubtless  exaggerations.  If 
they  include  the  unconscious  influence  of  these  writings,  they 
are  probably  understatements  of  the  truth.  The  little  or- 
ganization of  the  New  Church  makes  no  claim  to  being  the 
great  New  Church  of  God;  that  Church  is  something  far 
more  grand,  far  more  universal;  it  includes  the  great  multi- 
tude that  no  man  can  number;  but  we  believe,  as  already 
stated,  that  the  opening  of  the  Scriptures,  by  illumination 
from  the  Lord,  through  the  writings  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg, 
with  the  fuller  experience  of  divine  help  thus  made  possible, 
is  the  promised  second  coming  of  the  Lord;  and  that  the 
holding  and  teaching  and  living  of  the  doctrines  so  revealed, 
by  those  who  receive  them  and  recognize  their  source,  be 
they  many  or  few,  is  essential  to  the  continuance  of  that  light, 
and  to  its  increase  unto  the  perfect  day. 

''It  is  certain,"  wrote  Swedenborg,  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  "  that  a  new  church,  which  is  the  New  Jerusalem, 
will  exist."  Why  ?  On  what  did  he  base  this  certainty  ? 
Not  upon  evidence  of  such  a  church  in  his  own  day,  for  there 
were  but  a  handful  of  men  who  cared  for  the  new  doctrines 
from  the  Holy  Word  which  he  knew  must  form  the  founda- 
tions of  that  church;  not  upon  the  eager  reception  of  the 
books  containing  these  doctrines,  for  they  lay  unopened  in 
the  libraries  to  which  they  had  been  given.  The  confidence 
in  a  new  church  was  not  based  on  any  outward  evidence,  but 


THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  347 

on  the  fact  that  this  church  is  foretold  in  God's  Word.  "  It 
is  certain  that  a  new  church  which  is  the  New  Jerusalem, 
will  exist,"  he  wrote,  "  because  it  is  foretold  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse." ^  To  the  New  Church,  the  vision  of  the  Holy  City 
in  the  closing  pages  of  the  Scripture,  into  which  are  gathered 
the  promises  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Gospels,  is  the 
Lord's  revealing  of  the  Christian  life  which  shall  be  realized 
in  its  time.  It  is  not  a  vision  to  be  realized  only  in  heaven; 
the  Holy  City  was  seen  descending  out  of  heaven;  "  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men";  "  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world  are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his  Christ; 
and  he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever."  To  the  New  Church 
the  essential  principles  of  that  blessed  Christian  life  stand 
out  clear  and  sure:  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Lord;  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  holiness  of  the  Word;  and  the  life 
of  obedience  to  the  Ten  Commandments.  To  the  New 
Church  this  is  not  a  vision  to  be  enjoyed  for  an  hour,  and 
then  to  be  dismissed  from  the  mind;  it  is  not  a  dream,  but 
a  rational  ideal  of  Christian  life  for  the  individual  and  for 
society.  It  is  a  Divine  ideal  surely  to  be  realized  upon  earth, 
"  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it  ";  it  is  a  Divine 
promise,  to  be  kept  ever  in  mind  and  heart;  to  be  our  guide, 
our  strength,  our  joy,  in  all  our  going  out  and  coming  in,  as 
we  work  and  pray  for  its  fulfillment. 

1  Apocalypse  Revealed,  No.  547;  also  letter  to  Dr.  Beyer,  Documents,  Vol.  II, 
P-  383- 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abington,  Mass.,  337. 

Acton,  Lord,  3. 

Adams,  Hannah,  104,  329. 

Adams,  John,  53,  232,  236,  325. 

Albany  Convention  of  1852,  18,  65, 
66. 

Ames,  Charles  G.,  93. 

Andover,  Mass.,  32. 

Andover  Theological  Seminary,  50, 
59,  63,  102,  104,  131-133,  271. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  26,  27,  215, 
216. 

Antinomian  controversy.  vSee Hutch- 
inson, Anne. 

Anti-slavery  movement,  245,  246, 
286,  287. 

Arianism,  51,  52,  121. 

Arlington,  Mass.,  161. 

Arminianism,  50-52,  78,  98,  141, 
172-174,  308. 

Asbury,  Francis,  256,  260. 

Austin,  Ann,  180. 

Backus,  Isaac,   156,   157,   159,   160, 

162,  165,  166,  175. 
Bacon,  Leonard,  72. 
Ballou,  Adin,  314. 
Ballou,  Hosea,   298,  302-304,  308, 

309,  313,  314,  316,  319. 
Bangor  Theological  Seminary,  63. 
Baptists,  16,  17,  25,  49,  78,  79,  86- 

88,  137-176,  299. 
Barnstable,  Mass.,  145. 
Barrowe,  Henry,  6,  7. 
Bartol,  Cyrus,  263. 
Bass,  Edward,  239,  240. 
Bates  College,  80,  174. 
Bath,  Maine,  339. 
Bay  Psalm  Book,  23,  24. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  72,  73,  79, 

302,  305- 


Belknap,  Jeremy,  238,  298. 

Bellingham,  Mass.,  175. 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  264. 

Berkeley,  George,  222,  223. 

Berkeley  Divinity  School,  246. 

Bishops,  American,  53,  231-236. 

Blackstone,  William,  206,  207. 

Books,  read  in  New  England,  38-41. 

Boston,  II,  12,  17,  29,  30,  52,  85, 
151,  154,  206,  213,  214-216, 
225,    254,    255,    258,    284,   328, 

329,  344,  345- 
Brattle  St.  Church,  28,  30,  107. 
Christ  Church,  34,  221,  227,  229, 

254- 
Church  of  the  Advent,  245. 
First   Baptist    Church,    17,    151, 

153- 
First  Church,  51,  99,  i54,  i5S- 
First  Methodist  Church,  258. 
Morgan  Memorial  281-284. 
Old   South   Church,    24,    27,   59, 

15s,  215- 
Second  Baptist  Church,  155. 
Society  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  336, 

337- 

Trinity  Church,  221,  230,  241. 

See  also  King's  Chapel. 
Boston  Synod,  20. 
Boston  University,  266,  270-272. 
Bowne,  Borden  P.,  267-269. 
Bradford,  William,  8,  24. 
Brewster,  William,  4,  5. 
Bridgewater,  Mass.,  337. 
Bristol,  R.  I.,  219,  229,  240,  241. 
Brockton,  Mass.,  337. 
Brookline,  Mass.,  337. 
Brooks,  Phillips,  131,  247,  302,  305, 

342. 
Brown,  Samuel  and  John,  210. 
Brown  University,  163-168. 


352 


INDEX 


Browne,  Robert,  5,  6,  137,  139. 
Burial  Hill  Declaration,  66,  67. 
Bushnell,  Horace,  72,  131,  302,  305. 
Butler,  William,  277. 

Calvinism : 

Consistent  Cahnnists,  100,  loi. 

Hopkinsians,  48-50,   59,  90,   loi, 
102,  130. 

Moderate  Calvinists,  99,  loi,  102, 
112. 

New  Divinity  men,  50. 

New  England  Theology,  43,  48. 

Old  Calvinists,  50,  59,  90. 
Cambridge,  England,  University  of, 

13- 
Cambridge  (Newtowne),  Mass.,  12, 

16,  17,  62,  150,  227,  230,  337,  345. 
Cambridge  synod  and  platform,  16, 

18-20,  34,  35,  85. 
Camp  meetings,  285,  286. 
Canterbury,  N.  H.,  78. 
Channing,  William  EUery,  60,  116, 

117,  120,  126,  316. 
Charlestown,    Mass.,    11,    12,    151, 

153,  206. 
Chauncy,    Charles,    51,    150,    226, 

298,  299. 
Chelsea,  Mass.,  206. 
Christian  Connexion,  82. 
Christians,    77,   80-84,   87,   88,   90, 

93,  97,  98. 

Church  and  state,  7,  12-15,  20,  25, 
36,  37,  47,  54,  61,  62,  84,  106-109, 
137-139,  157-163,310-312. 

Claremont,  N.  H.,  228,  229,  311. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  305,  342, 

343- 
Cleaveland,  John,  298. 
Cobbett,  Thomas,  147. 
Colby  College,  167. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  131. 
Colman,  Benjamin,  34,  46,  225. 
Columbian  University,  170. 
Conant,  Roger,  209,  210. 
Concord,  Mass.,  280. 
Concord,  N.  H.,  270. 
Congregational  Creed  of  1883,  69. 


Congregational    national    councils, 

68. 
CongregationaUsm,  3,  7-9,   12,   19, 

35-37,  47,  58,  66,  67, 137, 138,  312. 
Congregationalists,  3-73,   137,   140, 

154,  156,  161,  163,  166,  210,  219, 

228,  232,  340. 
Connecticut,  16,  21,  34,  36,  46,  47, 

54,  64,  65,  230,  299,  306,  345. 
Contoocook,  N.  H.,  337. 
Cotton,  John,  13,  14,  41,  143,  145, 

212. 
Covenant,  8. 
Craigie,  Andrew,  326. 
Creighton,  Mandell,  3. 
Customs: 

New  England  Puritans,  22-26,  28, 
29. 

Quakers,  187-194. 
Cutler,  Timothy,  ;^^,  34,   219-221, 

225. 

Dartmouth  College,  47. 
Deaconess  Association,  279,  280. 
Dedham  case,  61,  106,  108-112. 
Deerfield,  Mass.,  23. 
Democracy,  8,  14,  36,  56. 
Dike,  Samuel  F.,  339. 
Disciples  (Campbellites),  82. 
Dorchester,  Mass.,  12,  21. 
Dover,  N.  H.,  218. 
Duche,  Jacob,  325. 
Dunster,  Henry,  17,  149,  150. 
Dyer,  Mary,  184,  245. 

Eastburn,  Manton,  244. 

Eastham,  Mass.,  285. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  42-45,  100, 
loi,  122,  129,  130,  223,  261. 

Eliot,  John,  17,  18. 

Elmwood,  Mass.,  337. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  60,  91,  92, 
127-129,  131,  342,  343. 

Episcopal  Theological  School,  Cam- 
bridge, 246,  271. 

Episcopalians,  9,  26,  27,  3$,  34,  47, 
53,  55,  58,  86,  137,  158,  159,  166, 
205-247,  252. 


INDEX 


353 


Fairfield,  Conn.,  230. 

Fall  River,  Mass.,  337. 

Fisher,  Mary,  180. 

Fisk,  Wilbur,  260,  264-266,  286. 

Fiske,  John,  142,  208. 

Foreign  Missions,  70,  115,  169-172, 

277,  278. 
Fox,  George,  179,  184. 
Free  Will  Baptists,  77-80,  81,  82- 

84,  87,  88,  90,  93,  95,  174- 
Freeman,  James,  58,  230,  237-239, 

258. 
Fryeburg,  Maine,  339,  340. 

Gainsborough  church,  139,  140. 
Gardiner,  Maine,  228,  339. 
Garrettson,  Freeborn,  254. 
GatcheU,  Joseph,  298. 
Glenn,  James,  325,  328. 
Gloucester,   Mass.,    299,   300,   310, 

317- 
Gorges,   Sir  Ferdinando,   205,  206, 

210. 
Gorton,  Samuel,  298. 
Great  Awakening,  42,  45-47,  78,  91, 

92,  155,  156,  223,  224,  226,  241. 
Great  Harrington,  Mass.,  241. 
Greenwood,  John,  6,  7. 
Griswold,  Alexander  Viets,  240,  241. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  342,  343. 

Half-way  covenant,  29,  30,  43,  85, 
154-156. 

Hampton,  N.  H.,  218. 

Harrison,  Frederic,  103. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  12,  21,  254. 

Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  63. 

Harvard  College,  17,  18,  23,  28,  29, 
34,  45,  59,  63,  97,  98,  io5,  "2, 
132,  133,  149,  150,  154,  163-166, 
218,  225,  242,  271,  326-328. 

Haverhill,  Mass.,  156,  175. 

Hedge,  Frederick  H.,  125. 

Hibbard,  Billy,  88-90. 

Higginson,  Francis,  10,  11,  143,  212. 

Higginson,  John,  11,  22. 

Hill,  WiUiam,  325,  326. 

Hollis,  Thomas,  154. 


HoUis  professorship,  59,  102-105. 
Holmes,  Obadiah,  148-150. 
Honeyman,  James,  218,  223. 
Hopewell,  N.  J.,  Academy,  165,  166. 
Hopkins,  Mark,  72. 
Hopkinsianism.     See  Calvinism. 
Huntington,  Joseph,  299. 
Hutchinson,  Anne,  15,  16,  124,  185. 

Indians,  17,  18,  43,  47,  170,  171. 
Ipswich,  Mass.,  36,  147. 

Jacob,  Henry,  145. 
Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey  Church,  Lon- 
don, 140,  141,  145,  147. 
Jenks,  William,  339,  340. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  220-223,  231. 
Jones,  Abner,  77,  78,  80-82,  97. 
Judson,  Adoniram,  169-171. 

Kansas  City  formula,  69,  70. 
Keith,  George,  217. 
King's  Chapel,  27,  34,  58,  99,  113, 
215,  218,  222,  229,  237-239,  253, 

330- 
Kingston,       R.  I.       (Narragansett 

church),  219,  229,  241. 
Kirkland,  John  T.,  258. 
Kittery,  Maine,  155. 

Lancaster,  Mass.,  337. 

Lathrop,  John,  140,  141,  145,  147. 

Lebanon,  Conn.,  47. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  56,  72. 

Lee,  Jesse,  52,  254-256,  260. 

Liberal    Christians,    50-52,    57-60, 

97,  98,  101-106,   108,  113,  116- 

118. 
Litchfield,  Conn.,  254. 
London,  5,  139-141,  I44,  i45,  i47- 
London- Amsterdam  Church,  7. 
Londonderry,  N.  H.,  55. 
Lonsdale,  R.  I.,  207. 
Lowell,  Mass.,  285. 
Lyford,  John,  208-210. 
Lyndon,  Vermont,  80. 
Lyim,  Mass.,  147,  148,  218,  255. 


354 


INDEX 


Maine,  167,  205,  210,  243,  306. 
Manchester,  N.  H.,  337. 
Mansfield,  Mass.,  337. 
Marblehead,  Mass.,  221,  263,  298. 
Marks,  David,  93-95. 
Martha's  Vineyard,  18,  285. 
Massachusetts,  12-20,  26-32,  35,  36, 

54,  55,  59,  61,  62,  84-88,  98,  99, 

106-112,   142-163,   180,   206-219, 

221,  229,  230,  243-245. 
Masson,  David  G.,  139. 
Mather,  Cotton,  31-33,  39,  i54- 
Mather,  Increase,  7,  27,  28,  30-32, 

35,  154,  218,  254. 
Mattapan,  Mass.,  84. 
Maverick,  Samuel,  206-208. 
Mayhew,  Jonathan,  51,  298. 
Meeting-houses: 

Methodist,  258,  259. 

Puritan,  22. 
Mendon,  Mass.,  315. 
Mennonites,  141. 
Methodists,  52,  53,  88,  251-294. 
Middleborough,    Mass.,    156,    157, 

175- 
Morell,  Robert,  206,  207. 
Morse,  Jedidiah,  104,  105,  258. 
Morton,  Thomas,  of  Merrymount, 

14,  207,  208. 
Murray,  John,   258,   299-302,  304, 

306,  308,  310,  313,  317,  319. 
Mysticism,  185-187. 

Nantucket,  244. 

Narragansett  church,  Kingston,  R.I., 

219,  229,  241. 
Natick,  Mass.,  18. 
New-Church     Theological     School, 

345- 
New  Durham,  N.  H.,  78,  174. 
New  England  Primer,  39-41. 
New  Hampshire,  173,  213,  243,  299, 

306,  311,  312. 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  21,  222,  255. 
New  Lights   (Separatists),   47,   48, 

78,  156,  157,  168. 
New  London,  Conn.,  230. 
Newbury,  Mass.,  16,  221. 


Newburyport,  Mass.,  23,  239,  241. 
Newport,  R.  I.,  49,  145,  147,  180, 

218,  229,  241,  306,  307. 
Newton  Theological  Institution,  167, 

168,  171. 
Newtonville,  Mass.,  337. 
Northampton,  Mass.,  42,  43. 
Norton,  Andrews,  60. 
Norwalk,  Conn.,  255. 
Norwich,  Conn.,  230. 
Norwich,  England,  5,  6. 

Oldham,  John,  209,  210. 
Oxford  Movement,  243-245. 

Park,  Edwards  A.,  66,  67. 

Parker,  Samuel,  240. 

Parker,  Theodore,  60,  112,  117,  126, 

127,  342,  343. 
Pearson,  Eliphalet,  103-105. 
Penny  rial  hymns,  92,  93. 
Peters,  Samuel,  228. 
Philadelphia  Convention  and  Arti- 
cles of  Faith  (Universalist),  313. 
Plan    of    Union    (Congregationalist 

and  Presbyterian),  37,  64-66. 
Plymouth   Colony,  and  Plymouth, 

Mass.,  10,  12,  24,  25,  27,  59,  139, 

148,  150,  208. 
Portland,  Maine,  210,  228,  339. 
Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  210,  228,  241. 
Presbyten  i,nism,  16,  21,  28,  35-37, 

55,  64  65. 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 

Part  ,   Society  for  the,   18,   217, 

219.  227,  232. 

Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  New 
England,  Society  for  the,  18,  217. 

Providence,  R.  I.,  and  Providence 
Plantations,  16,  145,  147,  148, 
163  172,  207,  219,  229,  241,  254, 
306,  337. 

Provoost,  Samuel,  234-238,  243. 

Quakers,  15,  86,  87,  124,  158,  159, 

166,  179-201,  217,  218. 
Quincy,  Mass.,  207. 


INDEX 


355 


Randall,  Benjamin,  77,  78,  80,  82, 

173,  174. 
Randolph,    Edward,    26,    27,    214, 

216. 
Ranke,  L.  von,  141. 
Ratcliffe,  Robert,  27,  213,  216-218. 
Redding,  Conn.,  230. 
Reed,  James,  336. 
Reed,  Sampson,  327,  343. 
Relly,  James,  299,  300-302,  313. 
Revolution,  American,  52,  160,  228- 

231,  242. 
Rhode  Island,  22,  197,  200,  218,  222, 

229,  243,  298. 
Rich,  Caleb,  313. 
Robinson,  John,  6. 
Robinson,  William,  216. 
Roman  Catholics,  55,  158,  288. 
Roxbury,  Mass.,  17,  21,  337. 
Rush,  Benjamin,  313. 

Salem,  Mass.,  11,  32,  84,  180,  209, 

210,  218,  312. 
Sandwich,  Mass.,  180. 
Sargent,  Abel,  313. 
Saybrook,  Conn.,  32. 
Saybrook  synod  and  platform,  21, 

34-37,  220. 
Scituate,  Mass.,  145,  150. 
Scott,  Job,  197. 
Scrooby,  4,  10,  139,  140. 
Seabury,  Samuel,  233-237,  240. 
Seekonk    (Rehoboth),    Mass.,    147, 

148. 
Separatists  in  Connecticut.  See  New 

Lights. 
Sewall,  Samuel,  18,  24,  t,^,  214,  215. 
Simpson,  Matthew,  293. 
Smith,  Ehas,  81,  82. 
Springfield,  Mass.,  21,  337. 
Standing  Order,    20,   77,   98.     See 

Church  and  state. 
Statistics: 

Baptists,  164,  176. 

Christians,  82. 

Episcopalians,  247. 

Free  WiU  Baptists,  174. 

Methodists,  288. 


New  England  churches  in   1700 
and  1800,  55. 

Quakers,  181. 

Swedenborgians,  337,  344,  345. 

Universalists,  306. 
Sterling,  Mass.,  285. 
Stevens,  Abel,  260. 
Stiles,  Ezra,  25,  36,  49,  53,  221,  255. 
Stockbridge,  Mass.,  43. 
Stone,  Baman  N.,  339,  340. 
Stratford,  Conn.,  221. 
Stuart,  Moses,  60,  72. 
Sturbridge,  Mass.,  159. 
Swedenborg,    Emanuel,    326,    327, 

Swedenborgians,  325-347. 

Taylor,  Father,  262-264. 
Taylor,  Nathaniel  W.,  65. 
Theocracy.    See  Church  and  state. 
Trinity  College,  Hartford,  246. 
Turner,  William,  153,  154. 

Unitarians,  52,  57-61,  71,  97-i33» 
237-239,  274,  275,  301,  304,  305, 
308,  312,  317,  318,  320,  328,  341. 

Universalists,  52,  100,  297-321,  328, 
341- 

Vane,  Sir  Harry,  144,  297. 
Vermont,  243,  246,  306. 

Waltham,  Mass.,  337,  345. 
Ware,  Henry,  60,  102,  104,  105. 
Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,  126. 
Warren     Association     of     Baptist 

Churches,  159,  175. 
Warren,  R.  I.,  175. 
Warren,  William  Fairfield,  267. 
Watertown,  Mass.,  21. 
Weeks,  Holland,  337-339- 
Wesley,  Charles,  253. 
Wesley,  John,  42,  52,  54,  223,  251- 

254,  261,  262,  286,  290,  291. 
Wesleyan  University,  265,  266. 
Westminster  Confession,  19,  20,  28, 

a- 

Wethersfield,  Conn.,  21. 


356 


INDEX 


White,  William,  234,  236. 
Whitefield,  George,  34,  45-47,  78, 

223-226,  241,  253. 
Whittemore,  Thomas,  314. 
Wigglesworth,  Michael,  38. 
WiUiams,   Roger,   14,    16,    142-145, 

147,  216,  245. 
Winchester,  Elhanan,  313. 
Winchester     Profession     of     Belief 

(Universahst),  307-310. 
Windsor,  Conn.,  21,  42. 
Winstanley,  Gerard,  198. 


Winthrop,  John,  12,  14,  20,  26,  143, 

144,  212. 
Wise,  John,  36. 
Witchcraft,  31,  32. 
Wolsey,  Theodore  D.,  33,  220. 
Worcester,  Mass.,  254,  284. 
Worcester,  Thomas,  326,  327,  329, 

336. 

Yale  College,  23,  32-34,  45,  48,  63, 
105,  163,  166,  2ig,  220,  222,  242. 
Yarmouthport,  Mass.,  337. 


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